An Insane World
by sourmash
Summary: "Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world." - R.D. Laing (A collaboration by authors hallonim and freshouttaideas.)
1. Chapter 1

**Authors' Notes: **We do not own anything by F/X or EL. We're just borrowing and hopefully the crew at F/X is amused by the fan stories too. We _do_ own all the other characters though and an idea or two. This is fiction, so excuse any lapses from reality, intended or unintended, any accidental using of real people's names, any grammar gaffs, intended or unintended. Reviews are chocolate, not necessary for survival but a nice treat; PMs are absolutely welcome through this pen name or our other ones; criticism is welcome too, at least the constructive kind.

Now, please extinguish all smoking materials and ensure that your seatbelts are securely fastened...

* * *

**An Insane World – Chapter One**

_RPG!_

_RPG? Where?_

_At your eleven. Eleven!_

He searches building by building, window by window, feels the sweat dripping down and off his jaw, through his shirt. He's swimming in it and the sun is heavy on him, so heavy. Even the air is weighing him down. His vision is limited to a spot through his scope and he wants to look right or left but he's afraid to take his eye away and miss something; he's afraid to look in case his spotter is dead beside him. Then he can't see anything and he fights through the blackness, fights to see, and then he's inside, inside the building and there are voices, people talking. He wanders the hallway searching for them. He knows it. It's a school.

The walls in the school are blue like the sky, blue and covered in kids' drawings pinned up and on display. He's looking for someone and there, there he is in the back corner. Shit, he's skinny. His sneakers are untied, the lace broken, and there's a hole in the sleeve of his hoodie. He's carving his name into the desk with a knife_ – T-i-m. _He's not supposed to have a knife; he'll get expelled if they find it. He tries to say something_,_ mouth open for words to come out, for a warning – _keep your head down, kiddo _– but the smell is wrong and it distracts him. It's thick, dust and concrete and blood, and someone's screaming. They shouldn't be screaming like that. It's not allowed inside.

Six years old and here in his school with the blue walls and he's looking up like he's been caught. It feels like he's been caught.

But this is what dreaming feels like too, so he must be asleep, and it feels like a nightmare because he can't move and he needs to. They're counting on him. He can't move anything, not his arms or his legs; his whole body is weighed down and he can't help. He can't get away. He knows it all too well, this nightmare, the one where he's running but something's holding him and nothing's holding him. He fights against it, something.

His dad's in the room with him. He's wearing white, face distorted in the sunlight broken up by the blinds on the window. He's writing notes on a clipboard like he's important. _Like he knows anything at all. _He hates dreaming of his dad unless it ends with him putting a bullet between his eyes, the son-of-a-bitch. A hand reaches out from the clipboard.

"Don't touch me!"

"It's okay. Relax. It'll be okay."

His dad's a fucking liar.

"You fucking liar!"

His dad moves back, not so brave now.

"And nothing's showing in the tox screen?"

All the kids get their drawings put up on the wall because everyone matters, everyone is unique and perfect in their own way, and all their mommies and daddies come to look and see how special and wonderful they are. They look at the distorted and bright pastel rainbows and stars and kittens and ponies and they know.

His picture is there too, on the blue wall, but he doesn't want to look at it. He wants to wake up. He's so sick of this dream. His lungs are wheezing and his heart hurts and he struggles against it, pulling and twisting because giving up isn't in him, and sooner or later something has to break.

His dad turns away, the silhouette of his back blocking the light.

Coward.

"What, you can't look at me now, huh? Can't even _fucking look at me!?" _He fights. He fights. He could take him, no problem.

"Nurse, lorazepam, 4mg. And somebody call upstairs."

He'll get expelled for bringing a knife to school and daddy will knock his two front teeth out for it but that's alright – they're baby teeth and he can spare them. The drawings are out on display and he doesn't have to look, he knows what he's done, a self portrait, little Timmy lying in the dirt with his limbs warped and broken and his face mangled and now everyone's going to see it, his very own contribution to the wall of special and wonderful. _Oh Jesus,_ what's that on the floor? He can't look away.

"Fuck."

_What is that? Is that…?_

There's a hand on his arm, on the skin between his shirt sleeve and the strap around his wrist, sudden and clammy, controlling, and he can't escape it. It makes him sick.

"Fuck you," he says, screams it out, says it like he means it.

"Easy now, just try to breathe. Everything'll be alright."

There's a sharp sting on the inside of his elbow and then he's waking up, or maybe not because the room is getting darker and he can feel his eyes sliding shut and his muscles loosening and he's melting, spreading out onto the earth like blood from a wound. He doesn't want to move anymore, can't remember why he was trying so hard to begin with. His dad's gone, dead like he should be. He sees him in the casket briefly, eyes closed. The blue wall is fading; he's fading.

* * *

Alex is hurrying through the hospital hallway. It's been one of those days.

"Dr. Alex Sullivan." A voice calls him back.

He turns, sees a familiar face, bright eyes, bright grin on a gray day.

"Hey Bridget," he says, grins back. He can't help it – her moods come out strong and slap you. "Why so formal?"

She takes his arm, falls into step with him, keeps pace effortlessly. "I heard your name called a while ago." She points up to the system. "It always gives me pause trying to reconcile the two – this beautiful baby face with the title, 'Doctor.'" She reaches over and runs her hand against the lay of his hair, messing it, flicks his cheek.

He swats her away, mildly annoyed. Normally he's just amused by her, but today it's all getting the better of him.

"So what was the call?" she asks.

"New patient. They wanted me down in Emergency. They'd already sedated him...delusional."

"You've got a full dance card," she says. "How are you holding up?"

"Uh…okay, I guess. Sophia's taking a lot of my time."

"And your new guy?" She's all business now. "What's it look like? Drugs?"

"I don't know. No. The tox screen came back clean. Some kind of psychosis?" He shrugs. "There's no history of…but…"

"But what?"

Alex shows her his clipboard, the Veterans ID card pinned at the top.

"Oh." She smiles support, waves and veers off into a doorway on to her own errands.

"Bridget, wait."

She stops, looks over her shoulder at him.

"I'd like your advice on this one."

"It's time to cut the umbilical chord, Junior." She smiles. "I'll stop by when I can."

* * *

It's fear, a feeling he knows well, so familiar it's bitter and dry on his tongue. It's holding him down and screaming at him to move. What can he do? He can't do both. He's waiting for orders and there's nothing but a buzzing – _fucking comm's not working again._ He growls to fight off the helplessness. It's so bright, the sun, and it seems to be coming from everywhere, reflecting from every surface and he can't open his eyes into it and when he does he only sees blurred shapes and he thinks he catches movement. The fear's there too. It's out there – he knows it – in that shadow, even in the bright light slicing at his eyes. The growl becomes a groan. He needs to find his team but he's afraid to call out because the fear is out there, and a threat, and they're listening.

_What if the enemy hears you? _

"Fuck off. Go away." It's a whisper from a little boy. Can't they leave him alone?

His hand is groping for his rifle, his helmet; he can't move it more than an inch or two. He tries the other hand but fear has a hold on it too; it has him good, holds him down hard like it did that fresh-faced private who wouldn't move even to save himself with the bullets hitting close. There aren't any bullets but the threat is a taste and a smell and it's crawling over him, over his chest and his legs and his arms and holding him down and he can hear it laughing at him. _This is how you die,_ it says. He has to move. If he stays in one spot, he's dead.

He tries to open his eyes again but the brightness pierces and he squeezes them shut.

The laughing becomes another voice but he can't make out the words. Pashto, maybe? Where's it coming from?

He needs to move.

Fear has a woman's voice. "I think you should go with the obvious, Alex. Trust your instincts until you get this under control. I understand why you started with it but don't continue the Lorazepam. It's too addictive – not recommended for PTSD-induced psychosis and it's a good guess that's what this is."

"I already switched it out. It's weird. He had another outburst after he was started on the sedative, fought against the restraints, so I opted for a 'Z' alternative. I'm wondering about paradoxical effects."

"Possible. How much has he had?"

"Hard to say. They gave him a dose downstairs, an injection, when he was brought in and I started an IV with it when we moved him up here...then interrupted it. I added a low-dose anti-psychotic at that point too."

"I think that's an excellent idea given his background. You're doing it all right as far as I can tell."

They're speaking English. A word or two slips through the buzzing. He tries to call out to them but his words are stuck in a dry mouth. What if they don't see him? What if he gets left behind? He has to move. But it's too late. They're gone and it's only he and the fear and a threat left. He tries to move again but he can't. Tears drain down his face from his eyes squeezed tight, frustration, hopeless, and he can't even move his arms to wipe them away and he's sure fear can see them.

* * *

Alex thanks Bridget who waves it away as she strides off down the hallway. He writes a note on his clipboard and stops to see the head nurse on the ward. He's discussing a drug regimen and putting the new patient on watch when an orderly appears at the door.

"Dr. Sullivan? The main desk is calling for you. They said if you have a minute they could sure use your help with something."

It's well past quitting time but some work days get stretched long and thin. Alex thinks about the rounds he still has to make, one last visit to Sophia's room before he packs up, another stop back with the new patient to see how he's responding to the added drug.

"I'll be fine with things here," the nurse says, reading the strain on the doctor's face. "I'll put someone in Mr. Gutterson's room for a bit. The folks out front wouldn't call for you if it wasn't important. Go on." She treats him like a kid, shoos him out the door.

Alex, distracted, lets her and walks quickly to the main floor. One of the administrators gets to him before he gets to the public area. She's clasping and unclasping her hands, flustered and agitated.

"I'm sorry," she says, breathless. "I know you're busy, but there's a man here, a US Marshal." Her eyes go wide. "He's asking about the young fellow we just admitted onto your ward. He's his boss, he says. He wants to see him. He's not taking no for an answer. Could you please just speak to him a minute? Try to calm him down at least. I don't know what to do with him."

Alex pauses before he pushes the door open, gathering up his courage. He can hear the voice before he sees the man, big, used to being in control and frustrated by his lack of it here, his authority useless. He's yelling.

"What d'you mean I can't see him? I'm his 'next of kin' or whatever you call it. I'm demanding to see him and I hate demanding."

Reading the name of the primary contact from the chart Alex steps into the waiting area. He tries to make himself larger than he is, tries to project a professionalism he isn't feeling today. He's expecting belligerent from someone with the title 'Chief Deputy' and so is surprised when he sees only desperation on the man's face, and worry. Alex drops his defenses and holds out a hand. "Chief Deputy Mullen? I'm Dr. Sullivan. I think I can help you. Can we, uh, talk in my office?" He gestures with the clipboard through the doors and down the hall.

Art Mullen turns hearing his name, ignores the hand and runs his eyes head to toe over the young man in the white coat, says angrily, "Great – a kid with a clipboard! What the hell is going on here? I've been waiting almost six hours for somebody to tell me something."

_Shit._ Alex swallows hard. "Sir, it would be best if you'd follow me so we can talk somewhere…in private."

Art glares then visibly wrestles with his anger, reins it in to serve his purpose. He allows himself to be led down the hallway. When the door shuts on the crowded waiting area he says, "Sorry for the scene back there but, dammit, I can't get any information from anybody about…" He waves his arms madly. "…about what the hell happened. And I'd like to see Tim – _now."_

"I understand your concern and I promise you that Deputy Gutterson is being well looked after." Alex spouts the lines, hating that he has to.

"_But…_ I feel a huge 'but' coming. I should give you fair warning – 'buts' just _piss _me off."

Alex stops and faces the man who has twenty-some years and at least fifty pounds on him and he takes in the gun in the holster and the star on the belt and everything that the picture suggests about the man's career and his capabilities, and everything it suggests too about his new patient. He swallows hard again before he says the other thing that he has to say.

"_But_ I'm afraid you can't see him – not now."

The belligerent is surfacing and it's intimidating. Art speaks in a low voice, threatening disguised as reasonable. He leans in and Alex takes a step back.

"Wrong answer. Maybe we could try this again. Where's Tim? That kid is my responsibility and I'm not leaving until I see him."

"It'll probably be more than twenty-four hours before you can see him. At least. We've put him in a high-risk ward until we can assess what's affecting him. No visitors. I'm sorry."

"High risk? High risk of what? Has he got a virus or something?"

"No, uh, not a virus. He's not…aware. He's been violent and…"

"Violent? He was unconscious when I brought him in."

"Not unconscious, catatonic."

There are answers to some of Alex's questions in the confusion on Art's face. "Are we even talking about the same patient?"

There's a teetering pause. Alex has no idea how to explain this without stomping all over his patient-doctor confidentiality; he's unsure about what he can say. He pulls Tim's Veterans ID card from the clipboard and holds it out for Art to see, to confirm, then he states what's already public record, "Chief Deputy Mullen, it might help if I clarify something. Uh…I'm a psychiatrist."

The man's face falls as the implication hits. He closes his eyes. "Aw, shit."

"Can we _please_ take this to my office?"

Art nods, all the fight gone, and follows.

* * *

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	2. Chapter 2

**An Insane World – Chapter Two**

This is a hospital, he's pretty sure, it smells like a hospital. He must be sick he's so tired, exhausted beyond possible and he's tipping over the edge into oblivion but she won't let him sleep. She won't stop screaming. It's a shrill, wet shriek – _because there's blood in her throat – _that's somehow echoing between the walls of his room, in the ceiling. Tim rolls over in bed, hides his head under the pillow and draws his knees up to his chest but there's no blocking it out.

He gets up, legs wobbling dangerously, feeling only halfway conscious but pissed off now too and that gets him going and he shuffles out into the corridor.

The screaming is torturing him and he can't figure out where it's coming from. The sound of her echoes everywhere, through him and around him. He just wants to close his eyes. He can't focus, can't think, can't even walk straight – _her_ _leg is bent at an odd angle, bone sticking out – _it's pathetic.

He whispers,_ "_Shut up! Shut the fuck up already!"

There are words mixed in, muddled with the screaming –_ sobbing –_ but he can't make them out. It's such an accusing tone, heavy with revulsion and fear and it's getting louder, louder and painfully desperate. She's dying. _She's dying and she's terrified and she's angry_ – he's terrified and angry, and why isn't anyone else reacting to this?

There's a window leading to a fire escape at the end of the corridor. He tries wriggling the handle but it's locked. He looks outside at the rain and the dark and tries to find her. He can see a winding stairwell and a patch of grass below but she's not there, she's not anywhere. It makes no sense, nothing makes sense here and he's sick of it and something builds in him until it overwhelms him and he slams his knuckles against the metal grid covering the glass, just once, but it hurts enough to take his mind for a second, a blissful second, away from the shrieking and then he hears rubber soles pattering across the tile floor, approaching.

_This is such a fucking joke_, he thinks and sobs once, quick and tight. He yells, "You don't have to come running all the way over here, alright? I'm fine."

The tallest of the nurses touches his shoulder. Tim tries to slap his arm away but his body won't obey him, dragged down and under and beyond his reach, and his arms are shaking with the strain of holding his rifle. His arms never shake. He's mesmerized by it, stares horrified at his trembling hands. How had he not noticed that before?

"Hey there, Tim. Let me take a look at your hand. You're bleeding."

_She's bleeding. There's blood everywhere. Not just hers. _"What?"

Tim is surrounded, cornered, his pulse speeds up because this isn't right. It's not right. Where is he? Where's his rifle? Why is he even here? He wants to ask but he can feel his eyelids closing out his thoughts, his shoulders sagging, his legs barely holding. He wishes he'd banged his head against the bars instead, maybe then he would've knocked himself out and all this shit would go away.

"Alright now, Tim. Come on. Let's get you cleaned up."

_Look what you've done!_

The nurse has this look in his eye now. Tim knows that look. He's worn it, worn it for countless assholes who've bitched at him and put up a fight when he's cornered them and pulled the cuffs out. They rarely go quietly to be hauled off to jail. And it's not right that it's directed at _him _now, that look. He doesn't want a fight, he just wants some peace and quiet. He rubs his good hand across his face, through his hair. He's still shaking.

"I'll go, okay? Just… Jesus, I was just trying to sleep! I just wanna get some sleep." It hurts to talk, his throat filled with sand.

"Let's get this checked out first, then you can sleep."

"Are you hearing this? Aren't you gonna do something? Aren't you gonna at least… I mean, she sounds bad. Can't you…?" He puts his hands up to block his ears but he can still hear her. "I don't know… "

They don't have to answer – he already knows – they're just going to leave her like that, like she's not even there.

* * *

Alex spends most of the night tucked into his favorite corner booth at the bar across the street from his apartment, a book glued to the sticky table, but it's too dark to read and he ends up getting a little too drunk for a weekday. He wakes up an hour late the next morning and arrives at the hospital flustered with his shirt on inside-out but by some miracle with five minutes to spare. Bridget, his tether to reality in this crazy job, his mentor, is reading one of the magazines from the waiting room, sits like a cat by the coffee maker. He stalks past her and sinks down into a chair.

She grins at him, peering up over the brim of her glasses. "Good morning, Dr. Sullivan. Another gorgeous day at the loony bin." She looks more carefully. "Actually, you look more like a patient than a doctor today. Your shirt's on inside-out."

Alex glances down, huffs, slides a little lower in the chair and rubs his eyes. "I can't believe you just said 'loony bin.' I'm pretty sure I signed something when I started that prohibited me from using that phrase."

"That's what one of my patients calls it. It's so wrong but the way she says it, it makes my day and it helps keep her afloat." She shrugs, smiles huge. "I don't mind it. It reminds me of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. _What's up, Doc?"_

"God, you're in a good mood. I hate you."

"And you're looking especially jittery today. I'll bet you'd really like a cigarette – one, quick, little puff out by the parking lot to kickstart the day. Imagine the wonderful clicky sound of the lighter and the taste of that first drag of smoke…mmm." She drops her head back, mimes a satisfying suck and blow, long thin fingers holding an imaginary cigarette.

He thinks she looks like Cruella de Vil with a little Freudian imagery thrown in, tells her as much. "You're evil," he concludes.

"Just keeping it honest. You know I'd break your neck if you gave in. And I'd lose five bucks to Gabrielle and Frank, and that new orderly on ward three. They're all betting against you."

"You're all evil."

"Mwahaha." She slaps the magazine down loudly on the chair beside her. "So, what's eating you? Can't fix all the world's problems in a week yet? It's taken twenty years working here, but I think I've learned the trick."

"Oh yeah? What trick?"

She smiles warmly, world-weary. Enough of the teasing. "I pick my fights, Junior. I dismiss most of the world's problems on some technicality or other." She waves them away, unaffected, like they're air. "I only tie to my heart the ones I know I can win, or at least have a fair shot at."

* * *

There's a phone call he has to make before he starts his rounds. Alex promised the Chief Deputy of the Lexington Marshals Service that he'd get in touch each morning with an update and he thinks he'd better keep that promise. Chief Mullen is polite, informative, concerned; he gives Alex the impression that he has all the time in the world for this call, that it's important to him. Alex has as many questions for Tim's boss as the Chief has for Alex. They talk for half an hour today and Art tells him everything he knows about Tim's past. It's lean on facts and specifics, but it's enough for Alex to get an idea of what he's up against. He takes notes.

The men's ward is noisy when he finally gets there – one of Alex's patients, Andy, is the ring-leader of the hallway cacophony, yelling at the top of his lungs, yelling at the dogs again. He starts throwing chairs to chase them out. Alex helps one of the staff get Andy calmed down and back in his room with a glass of juice and a promise that they'll keep the dogs outside. The staff shares a laugh about his antics. Andy is a favorite, always amusing.

Alex heads back down the hall afterward, stops and turns when he hears more yelling_. Get the fuck out! Get the fuck out__!_ A nurse steps out into the hallway to investigate and he and Alex both realize the problem at the same time. The Marshal, Alex's newest patient, is up and out in the corridor, has toed open the door to the room next to his and is peering in and frightening someone. The yelling chases Tim away from the door and he freezes, back against the wall, rapid breathing, trembling, and Alex approaches, cautious but openly. He keeps in Tim's line of sight and tries to translate the emotion on his face but all he recognizes is anxiety and he expects that. Tim's holding his arms in an odd way and Alex realizes that he's cradling a rifle, or at least he thinks he is – left arm supporting the barrel, right arm hooked over the stock and trigger finger straight across the guard.

"Tim?" Alex stops just shy of an arm's length. "What's going on, Tim?"

Tim holds up a hand, finger to his lips. "I can't find the team. I heard mortar rounds. What happened?" His voice is a whisper, rough. He looks rough. He drops his hand, head snaps down. "Where's my rifle?" His eyes dart nervously around the hall and he crouches suddenly, scared, vulnerable.

Alex crouches down with him. "Nobody here has a rifle. You can't have rifles in here."

"We gotta take this fight somewhere else. There's kids. Didn't you see them? Shit, where's my rifle!"

"There aren't kids here, Tim, and no fighting either. That was just the guys horsing around. Everything's good. Do you want to come with me and I'll show you?"

But Tim doesn't hear him, lost in his head. He's fixated on one thing. "I don't have my rifle."

"You don't need it, Tim. You're safe here."

"I don't have my rifle. Where's my rifle?" Tim rises, pushes past Alex and starts looking around on the ground. "Fuck. I didn't let go of it. I didn't. I didn't let it go. _Where is it?"_

"Tim…"

Alex reaches for him and Tim spins on the spot, frantic now, teeters and stumbles against the wall, careens away from him. A nod to the nurse and he disappears down the hall while Alex tries to corral Tim back into his room.

Tim has both hands on his head, horrified. "Shit, man, my rifle. Where's my rifle?" He's yelling.

The nurse jogs back with a syringeful of stronger sedative. Alex gets in front of Tim, still shuffling around the walls searching, distress etched deeply. He puts a hand on Tim's shoulder to stop him and does a mental scramble for details from his conversation with Art Mullen. He tries to speak to the delusions.

"Hey, Sergeant, they found it. They've got your rifle. You didn't lose it. The guys have it. They're playing a joke."

Tim's face switches in an instant, fear to confusion, "What?"

The nurse takes advantage of the distracted and sluggish patient, deft and fast hands with a needle, steps back out of the way quickly and nods.

Tim turns and looks at him, bewildered. "What're you doing?" he says then slides along the wall, then down the wall. "Fuck…" He looks up and Alex sees betrayal in the blue. "What the…?"

They help Tim to his feet and into his room. He tries to fight them but there's nothing for him to fight with, limbs like toys, no weapon, no rifle.

Alex sits for a few minutes and talks to him after they settle him on his bed. Tim is asking repeatedly for his rifle, asking for his team, asking for his rifle, fighting still against the weight of sedation, eventually silent. Alex repeats assurances – _the team is fine, they're all sleeping, your rifle is close by, no need to worry, you didn't lose it, it's fine, your team is fine._

When the calming and empty words are no longer necessary he sits a moment or two longer, quietly. He can't help making comparisons. They're the same age, almost. He tries to imagine Afghanistan and the sound of mortar rounds hitting. He can't put words to it; he can't speak that language, the language of ferocious and impersonal violence. He wonders if even someone who's been there could put words to it, but that's what they have to try and do, he and this patient. He has little doubt that Afghanistan is where they have to go to get to the core of this trauma.

If there were a crash course available on the culture of uniforms and battle-ready mentality, he'd take it. He remembers a nurse on the open ward with a military past, ponders buying him a beer after work one day soon, today or tomorrow, to pick his brain.

Tim's still twitching, mumbling. Alex makes a mental note to switch him to a stronger anti-psychotic. Reality may be a bitch but in this case he suspects the dreams are worse.

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3

**An Insane World – Chapter Three**

It's dark. It's dark because his eyes are shut tight. Tim has no idea what the rest of the world looks like. His is dark because he wants it that way. It just feels better and nothing is going to make him open them. But then there's breathing, and his eyes snap open, his heart sprinting; he's aware suddenly that he's not alone. His hands are covering his face and he spreads his fingers just enough and tries to squint through them. There's nothing but bright light, black spots dancing in it. He thinks if this isn't the worst fucking hangover in the history of alcohol then he's in some serious trouble.

He tries to remember something, but there's a relentless pounding in his head and every other part of him aches. It seems as though the entire world is tied to him, everything in it, and he can't bear the weight of it. He figures he's too tired to be awake. He can't ever remember being tired in his dreams though, so…so maybe he_ is_ sleeping off the mother of all benders. And maybe this is the dream he has sometimes right before he's really awake, that dream where he hears the alarm go off and he gets up and takes a piss and makes coffee and brushes his teeth and then he wakes up for real and he hasn't left the bed.

Noise again, close. He's _not _alone.

The skin on the back of his neck tingles. He makes a careful move to sit up but is stopped before he can lift his head by the flood of pulse roaring in his ears like fireworks. Like gunfire. Bombs. Whole cities are being blown right off the face of the earth, gone in a cloud of dust. That's what it's like.

_Fuck. _

Tim blinks through the intrusive glare until it fades into gray, into daylight, storm clouds and rain. He feels horrible, curls in on himself. He can't think, too tired.

_Oh, fuck._

This is definitely not his apartment. Did he pass out somewhere stupid? Maybe he's sleeping it off in a holding cell.

_Shit. What's Art going to say?_

Through the glare there's a silhouette, a blurry shape standing by the window, shifting from one foot to the other, erratic, skewed.

"You're new," the silhouette says, a man, his voice stabbing into Tim's head. "It's okay. You gotta listen though…"

Tim rubs his face, dull and slow, ends up staring at his palms. He mutters a curse, tongue feeling thick in his mouth, dust dry. He doesn't recognize his own voice. The man by the window takes a step closer, more detail now, his grin grotesquely wide and his eyes bulging out from his skull.

_A clown. _

"You're all tucked away now, new guy, aren't ya? How's it feel? This room is bright. Mine's alright, but they put something in the mirror."

He's standing right out in the open and it pisses Tim off for some reason but he can't figure out why.

"Hey, get the fuck down," he hears himself say, sharp and annoyed.

The anger is sudden, surprising him, but it feels good, better than tired and he wants to keep it, wants to use it to get up, something, anything. The clown's still talking though and the jumble of words gets in the way of Tim's anger and now he's slipping back.

"No, listen…you _can't_ _tell_ when they're looking, do you understand? Did you know they used to lobotomize people for being sad? I don't think they do that anymore. Someone could be watching though and that's not just in here, that's _everywhere._ I'm only telling you this 'cause you're new. Why are you here anyway?"

"_Jesus fuck,_ would you just shut the fuck up?" The words rake across Tim's throat.

The man takes a few steps to the side, hunkers down a little, says, "Yeah, yeah, sure." He's shifting again from one foot to the other. "What's your name?"

Tim peers at him from behind his hands, gets more details – tall, lanky, big beard, pearly white and spit-shiny teeth. He struggles to remember the face, to place it. He wants to recognize it so something will make sense. But there's nothing. He closes his eyes again. He wants to be alone, wants to sleep.

There's a new sound. It's familiar. He should know what it is.

"Do you hear that?" the clown says.

_Footsteps. _

"It's spaghetti and meat sauce today. Bet they won't let you have any coffee, right? Pricks, huh? But some of them are alright."

"What?"

It's closing in, the sound, faster and louder. Tim feels he should get up. There's something he should be doing. He needs to get up. But the pain in his head keeps him still and then he can't breathe either. _He can't breathe._ What the hell has he been drinking?

_Paint thinner? _

The clown sways in closer and leans down, breath like chemical rot. "Listen, it's important. You never know when they're watching so you always gotta stay in line, alright? Don't do anything stupid like let the dogs in. It's a trick. You think they're not looking because you can't see them but you never know so it's like they're looking _all the time_."

Tim covers his ears, mumbles, "Shut up. Just _shut up…"_

_Shut up. _

The footsteps are right outside now, there's the creak of a door and a new set of sounds – busy clattering, echoes, someone laughing, someone else crying. Tim keeps his head tucked away, thinks he'll fight if he has to. He'll fight.

It shouldn't be this hard to breathe.

A new voice floats over, deeper and softer. "Andy, you are _not_ supposed to be in here. Come on now. Out you go." Then it's closer, "Hey, Tim. Are you alright? How are you feeling today?"

There's a hand on his arm. He flinches from it and it disappears.

"My head hurts." Christ, he sounds pathetic. He thinks about his dad, waits for the scolding. _Buck up. You'll live._

"I'm sorry, Tim, for the noise. We'll get you something to help with the headache, make you feel better. Would you like some water?"

The sympathy gets through to a neglected place. Tim feels like a kid again. He nods a 'yes' but he's not sure it made it out there. He's slipping again, his mind aware of something that's just out of reach, an afterthought, a missing piece. He chases it but he can't get to it, gives it up and gives in. Pathetic.

And the clown voice is back, acidic, boring into his brain, drilling through flesh and bone. "Alex, hey, Alex, listen…" It's shrill, giddy. "Did you know that they used to put people in insulin comas for being crazy?"

The softer voice again. "You can't just walk into other people's rooms like this, Andy. It's not alright."

"Yeah, but did you know that though?"

"Yeah, I knew that. Let's go talk outside. It's almost lunch time."

"Spaghetti – but I'll need some ketchup 'cause I can't have the meat sauce. Maybe you shouldn't bring it in here at all, the meat, 'cause of the dogs. They can smell it, you know. Last time – spaghetti – they got in, remember? Hey, I wanted to talk to you. Hey, Alex, are you listening? It's something I was thinking about the other day. They used _ice-picks_, did you know? For the lobotomies…"

Tim groans and slides down in the bed, pulls the covers over his head. There's a hand back on his arm, only for a second, a brief squeeze. "Sorry, Tim. I'll, uh…have someone bring you something for the headache."

And then it's quiet, _finally,_ and he falls asleep.

* * *

Sophia still refuses to talk. She sits on her bed, eerily still, the bruises from her latest suicide attempt strikingly blue around her neck, and stares hollow-eyed and vacant into space. Her dry lips are cracked and split. She won't eat, she won't drink. Alex looks at her helplessly, the specter under his care, and it makes him cold.

"You have choices, Sophia."

There's a tray on the table beside the bed, soup and bread, it smells like celery. It reminds Alex of being young, home, he and his sister eating canned soup, cream of celery.

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and waits – waits for something to snap, to break apart or slide into place, something. She barely even blinks. _You have choices._ The skin on the back of his neck prickles. She's choosing to die and he can take that away from her. They'll shove a tube up her nose and into her stomach and force the food into her and it'll be degrading and it'll hurt. He presses the palm of his hand into his eye. He can hear her slow, raspy breathing; her body sounds hollow. He feels hollow. He's not ready to make this choice. Not yet.

He's afraid for her; he's afraid for himself. He worries he's not cut out for this.

He remembers it's Friday and checks his watch; it's after six and he needs a weekend and this one is all his. He stands up and leaves abruptly, suddenly needing to get out. He chews a lip as he walks quickly through the hallway and out the doors. A terse, "Have a good weekend," for the staff then he beelines it for some morale boosting.

Alex knocks before he pokes his head into Bridget's office. She's sitting by the window, reading another waiting room gossip magazine.

"Alex, my dear, save me from this depression. I'm heartbroken. Brad and Angelina are fighting again."

He stops in the doorway. "Um…"

She laughs, waves an arm around coolly dismissing the celebrity drama, and says, "Dinner at my house – Saturday night – because I know you don't have anything better to do and you look like you need cheering up in the form of some intellectually-stimulating conversation."

He snorts.

"And alcohol," she adds, sweetening the deal.

Alex flops down into a chair, plunks his boots on the table beside a box of tissues, kicks it to the side. He doesn't keep one in his office, feels it too presumptuous – not everyone needs a good cry.

"Saturday." He draws the word out, pretends to think about it. "Gosh, I can't make it. I've got an evening of excessive drinking and anonymous sex planned."

She humphs, says, "How novel," and turns the page of her magazine.

Bridget has turned dinner invitation planning into an art form, _an expressionist art form,_ Alex thinks and forces a grin down before she catches him and gets smug about it. Of course, he'll be there – he wouldn't miss it and she knows it. Last month, she had two members of the online Freudian society, a neurobiologist from Princeton, a Kentucky minister and Frank, their boss, all neatly placed around her dining room table. She made the introductions and then sat back with a glass of wine and watched the show. It was a fun night.

She shuts the magazine abruptly, loudly, interrupting his thoughts. "Saturday night, seven sharp. You'll be there, Junior. I'll save you from your wicked ways."

"Yeah, alright, I'll be there. Are you changing the players this time?"

"I don't know yet. But I think I might add a sociologist. The argument last time could have used a bigger picture perspective." She actually sounds serious. "I'll see who's available. Have you ever met Michelle? She's one of the suits in administration downstairs."

"No. She hot?"

She glances at him, a corner of her mouth twists up. "Mm-hmm."

Alex blinks once, twice, says, "I should probably get your definition of 'hot' before I get my hopes up. Is she young or youngish?"

Bridget smiles.

"You do a good imitation of the Cheshire Cat," he says, stands to leave.

"Got any plans tonight?" she asks.

"Sleep." He stops again at the door. "It gets better, right?"

"It gets _easier."_ The enigmatic smile is back. "You win some; you lose some. Hang in there so you can see for yourself."

* * *

0000000000000


	4. Chapter 4

**An Insane World – Chapter Four**

Tim wakes in a panic, struggles to sit up, lungs heaving, heart pounding. Looking around the room he tries to remember where he is but all he can remember is being held against his will and he wonders who found him, who freed him. The room is sparse, institutional, a hospital. He's been in enough of them to recognize the utilitarian décor, the sickly odor. He runs his hands down his chest and moves his legs wondering where he was injured, then he swallows against a dry throat. There's water in a plastic glass on the table and he reaches for it, drinks it down.

Getting up is a struggle. He fights with the blankets, fights with his body to do his bidding. When he has his feet on the floor it takes him a moment to get his balance and trust his limbs. He takes a couple of steps and frowns at the cold from the tiles against his bare feet. He wishes for socks, for something warm to eat. He feels empty. It motivates him to explore.

There are three doors in the room. One goes to a hallway that he can see through a small window at the top. He moves slowly and cautiously away from the bed, shaky, and checks the next door – a closet with some clothes, his. He pulls them out and sets them on the bed and changes and it feels good, sweats and a t-shirt and socks and his favorite worn hoodie that he can't bring himself to throw out. He stands hugging himself when he's done, fistfuls of the hoodie in each hand where it bulks out around his thin frame, enjoying the feel of something familiar. It grounds him. When he's feeling a bit more put together, glued and tightened, he continues his exploring, turns to the last door.

The last door leads to a bathroom. He steps up to the sink and looks at himself in the mirror. The face that looks back needs a shave and some sleep and it raises its eyebrows and Tim tries a smile and it smiles back. He turns on the tap and splashes water on his face then eyes the shower but rejects the idea. It seems like too much work right now and he's already tired.

Standing with his hand on the door to the hallway, he feels the anxiety rustling, whispering fears – _what if it's locked? – _but it opens when he pulls on it. The corridor beyond is empty, lightly lit and quiet. He pauses in the doorway, drifting, wondering what to do with his freedom, wondering how long he was out. He can't remember getting here. He can't tell even where time starts to blur. It's too hard to focus. What the hell happened?

Shuffling down the hall to the left, he decides to look for someone to answer his questions, hopes for something to eat too, listening to his stomach complain. He reaches the end and tries the door there but it's locked. There's a lone chair against the wall and he sits down on it, just to rest a minute. The sky outside that he can see through the doors to a window is dark, dark grays and blacks and more grays, stormy. No wonder he's tired – it's probably the middle of the night. Tim's eyes start to slide shut and he jerks awake as his head falls forward. He stands unsteadily, reorients himself and wanders down the hall the opposite way.

The hospital odors in the corridor are stronger than in his room. They remind him of war – sweat, vomit, piss, shit, blood and fear – but then there's a pervasive scent of industrial cleaner that sits on top and tries to hide the rest and does a poor job. In war it was cordite and gun oil and diesel on top. He decides as he drifts along that he prefers the war smells, the cordite and gun oil and diesel, to the ocean breeze or lemon scent or pine fresh or whatever they're using here. He hears something, drops his hand to his hip and misses having his holster there and there's no rifle strap over his shoulder either. He runs his tongue nervously over his dry lips and moves on cautiously.

Near the far end, the hall opens on the left to a counter, the nurses' station, with a few chairs over to one side. Someone is moving the chairs and peering behind them. Tim stops and watches. The man is in bare feet, he's moaning incoherently, crying.

"Hey, buddy," says Tim, raspy words. "You okay?" He looks around for a nurse, peers over the high counter.

The man turns and holds out his hands, pleading. He walks toward Tim and when he's close enough he takes hold of Tim's arm and pulls. "Help, please. I can't find him. I don't know where I left him."

Tim nods. He's dealt with people like this often in his job – drug addicts, drunks, the occasional mental disorder. The general rule is to speak to them calmly, don't get them riled.

"No problem, buddy. Let's see if we can find someone who knows where he is."

The man drops his grip, sobs, "Nobody knows."

"Let's go find someone, alright? I'm new here, so I don't know the place very well…" Tim tries to ignore the mucus running in a stream from the man's nose. "I'll just look over here."

Tim points past the counter, walks to the double doors and pulls but they're locked too. He's locked in. He turns in a circle looking for another exit but there isn't one and the anxiety starts to whisper again. The panic grows from the inside out and a throbbing starts behind his eyes and builds. Bringing up his hands he presses them hard against the sides of his head trying to stop the hammering, slow the rhythm of the blood drumming against his temples. He feels like he's going to throw up and his vision blurs.

A door opens then and Tim hears voices and the crying man moans louder and louder behind him.

"Jesus," he whispers, wrestling to get control of his fear but he can't. He can't find an edge to grab.

"Tim." A hand settles gently on his shoulder and he tries to focus on it, tries to decide if it's a threat that needs action. It's attached to a woman looking concerned, studying his face intently. "Tim, are you alright?"

"Jesus, my head hurts. Why is everything locked?"

She leads him to a chair and settles him on it and he drops his head into his hands as she rubs his back. He's so grateful when the moaning fades, disappearing down the hallway and behind a door. The panic ebbs.

"You found your clothes," she says softly.

"Yeah."

"Are you looking for something?"

"No, just… He was. He was looking for someone. I was just looking for someone to help him. I don't think he's all there."

"That was nice of you to try and help him. Can I get you anything? Are you having trouble sleeping?"

Her voice is so soft, so calm. He huffs thinking that she's talking to him exactly the same way he was talking to that crazy man.

"What's funny?" she asks.

"You. You're talking to me like I'm crazy."

She chuckles. It's beautiful, low, soft too.

"You're not crazy. But I think I am – agreeing to do someone's night shift. Are you okay now?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm sorry."

"For what?"

He has no idea. "Can I get something to eat if it's not a problem? I'm really hungry."

"I'll bet you are. Hold on." She walks away and he hears her talking then she comes back and pulls a chair up beside him. "Do you remember who I am? We've spoken before, but you might not remember."

He looks up at her face; he can focus now. Maybe she looks familiar but he shakes his head, no.

"I'm Martha," she says. "I'm the head nurse on this ward. You seem more yourself tonight. What do you remember?"

He thinks about it. "Not much. Was I hurt?"

"I'm not a doctor, Tim, but I'd say you were, only…a while ago. I think you're just feeling it now, is all."

Another woman walks up to them and hands a glass to Martha who says thank you and dismisses her and then hands the glass to Tim. "It's banana chocolate – my favorite of the flavors they've got here. It's got some protein powder in it though so it's not as good as you'd get at a diner. Unfortunately the kitchen's closed and this is all we've got till morning. Still, it'll fill the void."

Tim takes the glass and sips at it. It's not bad, not bad at all. He finishes it while she watches.

"Tell me your name," says Martha.

He frowns at the question. "Tim Gutterson."

She nods. "And what do you do for a living?"

"I'm a Marshal – a Deputy Marshal with the US Marshals Service." He gives her a worried look. "I should call my boss."

"It's okay. He knows you're here."

He tries to think about it, to understand, but it's work. "God, I'm tired."

"Do you think you can sleep?"

"Yeah. Thanks for the milkshake."

"Not a problem." She helps him to his feet and down the hall to his room, gets him settled. "We'll bring you a good breakfast in the morning."

Tim closes his eyes. It feels good to lie down. The bed is comfortable.

* * *

The next morning Tim asks a nurse if he can get a razor – he wants to shave. She comes back moments later with everything he needs: a blade razor, new in the package, shaving cream. She walks into the bathroom, deposits it all on the counter and stands back in the room, arms crossed.

"Uh, thanks," says Tim. He waits for her to leave.

"Well?" she snaps. "I haven't got all morning."

"You can go. I know how to shave." She makes him angry the way she looks at him like he's stupid.

"Fine." She collects the items again and storms out.

Later Martha, the head nurse, knocks at his door, brings him back the razor. She smiles, apologizes for the nurse that morning, makes excuses for her, how busy it was earlier, then sits down on a chair in his room and tells him to leave the bathroom door open. "Please," she says kindly.

It's an odd request. Tim thinks about it, thinks about the nurse that morning. Slowly, a realization forms, a cold dread seeping through his thoughts collecting evidence. He knows this routine. He's visited guys in places like this. He steps to his bed and sits down, sets the razor beside him on the blanket and looks at it. He wets his lips.

"Ma'am, how did I get here? This is a Psych Ward, right?"

"Yes, it is."

"What did I do? What happened?"

"Nothing you need to worry yourself about."

Tim is getting agitated. "Can you just tell me, please?"

She folds her hands in her lap. "Tim, your psychiatrist has a game plan for your recovery. I'm not allowed to interfere without consulting with him first."

"Psychiatrist." Tim's voice breaks over the word. "My recovery? From what?"

"You need to talk to Dr. Sullivan about that."

"Well, when can I talk to him?"

"He's back soon, day after tomorrow, and will want to see you then. I could get the doctor on staff today but it'd be better if you waited for Dr. Sullivan. You need some rest anyway. He's been in to see you often but you've been…"

Tim tries to remember back, the last few days. There are snippets but he can't separate anything from what can't possibly be real.

"I've been what?"

She doesn't shy away from his gaze, she just moves on, so calm and reasonable that he can't be angry with her.

"Let's just handle today. Do you want help shaving? I'm pretty good at it."

Tim can't move on just yet, looks back at the razor.

"Are you afraid of me, of what I'll do with a razor?"

He appreciates that she appears to be giving it some serious thought.

"No, I'm not afraid of you, though maybe I should be – you being a Ranger and a Marshal and all." She softens the remark with an honest smile. "Tim, we have rules on this ward for a reason. I tell you, I've seen it all in here, been surprised often by what people will do. But I'll make a prediction in your case – I think you'll be fine. I've been wrong before though and I'm not willing to gamble your life on my instincts. Some people get very upset when they put two and two together like you've just done. So, I'm a little afraid _for_ you. Do you understand? Recovery can be difficult at times, whether the hurt is physical or emotional. Physical is often easier to deal with because everyone can see it for what it is. This kind of hurt, though, what you're going through…" She shrugs. "Be patient with yourself. Let it happen."

"It's not like I have much choice. You've got me locked in here."

"Oh, now, don't kid yourself. Everyone has choices." She's serious.

Tim considers her statement, considers his own experience in the matter and that's no small thing – he's seen enough guys break down one way or another. He decides not to think about it anymore today, picks up the razor and steps into the bathroom. In the end, he needs her there anyway – his hand shakes too much to do a decent job so she sits him in a chair and does it for him.

"Feel more like yourself?" she says when they're done.

"A little bit."

"My sister's boy was in Iraq," she offers, collects the shaving things. "My name's…"

"Martha," he finishes for her. He remembers her from last night.

She seems surprised and pleased. "Yes, Martha. Come get me if you need anything," and she bustles out the door.

* * *

0000000000000


	5. Chapter 5

**An Insane World – Chapter Five**

Alex drops by the hospital on the weekend, Sunday morning wakes him up from a nightmare starring Sophia and he can't shake a bad feeling. He drives in after trying to talk himself out of it over coffee. The first thing he notices when he walks into Sophia's room is that it's cold – it's an old part of the building, drafty – then it's Christina, the nurse, who gets his attention. She's attached to her cellphone in the middle of a hushed conversation about restaurants. There's a rule against bringing your phone onto this ward. She looks up, caught, surprised to see him, and flashes a bright bleached smile as her excuse.

Sophia's lying down, eyes open and fixed on the ceiling. She's been pulling at her clothes. He's seen her do it before, as if she's trapped and choking. The buttons on her cardigan are torn open and the shirt is tugged down and stretched out exposing her pale chest. Her skin is almost blue in the harsh light, covered in goosebumps. She looks frail, on display for the vultures. It's undignified. Alex feels Christina's shame for her.

Christina acts like she hasn't even noticed. "Dr. Sullivan. You don't mind about the phone call, do you?"

He takes a few seconds to breathe before he speaks. "Take a break, Christina. I'll stay for a while." She could at least make sure the patients don't freeze, he thinks, angry. He approaches the bed when she leaves, stands staring like he's at the casket at a viewing.

"Hey, Sophia. How are you doing today? I, uh…I'm just gonna fix your clothes, okay? You look cold."

He's uncertain about touching her, uncertain about her boundaries, even looking at her like this feels like a violation. He buttons her cardigan and pulls a blanket up over her then he slumps down into a chair and just sits for a while before he flips through her blood test results.

"This can't go on, Sophia. You know that, right? I want the decision about what's going to happen to be yours, and it _can_ be, but I…I can't let this go on much longer."

He tells her about the nasogastric feeding, how it works and how it'll feel, why it needs to happen if she continues to refuse to eat. She doesn't say anything; she doesn't move. Alex gets restless facing her inactivity, gets up, paces then leaves to hunt down the head nurse, set a few things straight about Sophia's care.

Martha's in the men's ward, standing firm in the middle of the chaos, loud wailing drowning out the snuffling and muttering and there's an intrusive stink of vomit. Still, she has a smile for him, says, "Aren't you off this weekend?"

His anger is at the surface and he brushes aside the greeting. "I don't want Christina near her anymore."

Martha takes a deep breath, folds her arms. "I know. I hear you. But if she's on shift… I'll do what I can, Dr. Sullivan, but I can't be everywhere."

Usually it's 'Alex' – if she calls him 'Doctor' then it's business and not up for argument. It's not fair but it's not her fault. He backs down. "Martha, I appreciate everything you do on this ward. You know that, right?"

Martha's smile is sympathetic. She knows.

"I should be licking your shoes," he jokes.

"Now, stop," she says, but she's pleased and wants to say something to cheer him up too. "I think you need to get Tim Gutterson off this floor."

Alex's shoulders slump. "Is he giving you trouble? I'm worried he's going to hurt somebody with his training."

"No, no, you misunderstand. You haven't had a chance to see him when he's lucid and awake. He's not been difficult. He stays in his room and who could blame him. He got himself up Friday night and dressed and was trying to help one of the other patients in the hall when I found him. He hasn't had a serious episode the last 48 hours, just a little anxiety. I helped him shave. He asked."

"Really?" Alex's face lightens. He's been so preoccupied with Sophia he hasn't had the time to pay proper attention. "That's…that's good."

"I think he needs some quiet. Move him soon."

As if on cue the alarm for the men's ward goes off and the two of them hurry down the hall to help.

After the problem has been dealt with and things quiet down, Alex goes looking for Martha to finish their conversation. She's not in the hallway, not at the nurses' station. He checks each room and finally finds her kneeling at the foot of the Tim's bed. Tim's there too, sitting on the floor – Alex can see his arms holding his head protectively while Martha talks to him. Tim drops his hands eventually and looks at her and says something. It makes her smile. She reaches out and pats his knee.

Alex leaves them alone, waits in the hall until Martha comes out then follows her to her desk to fill out the paperwork to have Tim moved.

Martha nods her approval when he signs, then shoos him out the door again, tells him to get out, go home and enjoy the rest of his day off.

* * *

Tim's heart starts to race again, fighting against his drugged limbs, pushing for action. He's lying down when he hears the noise. He sits up slowly, slides his butt across the bed to the edge and it's such an effort. Lessons from sniper school, in-class time, come to mind and he thinks _the friction coefficient must be pretty high_ _for my ass dragging on this bed_. He thinks a laugh too but like the rest these last two days it doesn't make it out of his head, like a laugh-track playing on a set. He manages to make it off the mattress just as the door opens.

The sound of feet in the hallway is what got him moving. He's never sure if they're heading to his room, those feet, so he always gets ready. Ready for what, he doesn't know, but he's ready, sort of.

"Hi, Tim."

It's Martha – he sees her more than anyone. She's a soft-hard type, soft voice, gentle manner, but no one crosses her. In his vernacular, she's the sergeant-major – the respect earned not expected. She has someone with her today, a big man with a big smile, white teeth gleaming. He walks into the room behind her, holds out a hand for an introduction. When Tim's attempt to return the courtesy is sluggish, the man moves quickly to take the focus away from it, bends forward and reaches a little farther with his long arm to make up the distance. He shakes Tim's hand gently but firmly, gives a light slap on Tim's shoulder.

"Jesse Connell," he says. "Good to meet you, Tim. I understand we have some of the same dust between our toes."

Tim squeezes his brain hard to get the reference, nods. "Afghanistan. Where were you?"

"KAF, for a full year and a bit – fortunate enough to have duties that kept me there on the base."

Tim smiles a little. "What year?"

"2006."

Some kinship expresses itself on Tim's face – it lightens. "We might've crossed paths."

"I might've kicked your ass at poker."

"I might've been too drunk to notice."

Jesse laughs out loud and it sounds like the whole host from heaven singing. Tim turns to hide his face, his emotions not his own or at least it feels as if they own him now.

Martha grins, moved too by Jesse's laugh. "You boys – do you ever grow up?" she says enjoying a good moment on the ward, and then she's all business. "They're moving you downstairs this morning, Tim. Jesse is going to take you now."

Tim's heart has only just settled back into a calm rhythm; it ramps up again. "Why?"

"Because we've seen some improvement. I recommended it. This is a step forward. The doctor wants you where it's a little quieter and less restricted – a little more freedom for you and then you can start seeing him in his office instead, more formal sessions."

Tim tries to remember when he's even seen a doctor. The time here's a blur in a haze.

"You're moving up, brother," Jesse says. "It's a vote of confidence from the man with the clipboard. It's all good."

Tim nods but he's still uneasy.

"It'll be fine, Tim. Trust me – you'll like it better on Jesse's ward. I like it better on Jesse's ward. In fact I'm thinking of checking myself in for a weekend holiday." She gives his arm a squeeze. "Good luck, honey."

Just like that she goes from sergeant-major to mother. It makes Tim feel better. She nods once and leaves them to it.

Jesse has a bag under his arm, offers it up. "Let me help you with your stuff."

"I don't have much."

"We have some more of your things downstairs in a locker for you. Some of it isn't allowed on this floor. Some of it we figured you just wouldn't need."

Jesse doesn't appear to be in a hurry, helps him fill the bag. As Tim does a last check of the room he wonders for the first time where the clothes came from. They're his from his place, stuff he hangs out in on weekends. How did it all get here? How did he get here?

He says aloud, "Who brought my stuff in?" He's stopped asking how he got here – no one will tell him despite his persistence asking every staff member he's run across these last two days.

"I dunno," says Jesse. "Family?"

"None anywhere nearby."

An easy-going shrug, "Well then, the man's got friends."

They walk the hall, out through the double sets of locked doors and down another hall and onto an elevator and Jesse presses the button for the next floor down. Tim shakes his head – he'd never take an elevator just to go one floor but he's glad to today. He's already tired.

"You in the Reserves, too?" Jesse asks.

Tim shakes his head, no. "I was Spec Ops, Ranger."

"Hooah, brother."

"Hooah." Tim mumbles it, feels like a fraud and wonders if they'd take him back now after all this. "You Army?"

"Air Force. Worked at the airfield. Mechanic."

"And now you're working in a _hospital?"_

"I get edgy around airplanes since I got back. You understand."

"Yeah. Yeah, I get it."

"Figured you would. You last out your contract?"

"Uh, yeah...and more. I was gonna go career, but…" The elevator doors open and save Tim from explaining himself. He doesn't feel like it.

Tim hopes maybe Jesse will be straight with him, understand that it's different for guys like them. He waits until they're in his new room after Jesse's shown him around – it doesn't take long, here's the common room, the nurses' station – then he corners him when they're alone again, asks the question, "Hey, Jesse, why am I here? I don't remember a thing. I just woke up in that room." He points up.

Jesse sits down on the bed and rubs his knee like it's sore and looks up at Tim standing nervously, looks him in the eye. "I know less about it than you, and that's the truth. I know that you're here 'cause you need to be, and _we're_ all here to make sure that you get whatever you need to get back square with yourself and out that door." It's his turn to point. "I like your doctor, for what it's worth. He's a straight-up guy."

Tim's disappointed and it shows.

"You need anything?" Jesse asks.

Again a head shake, no. Tim doesn't trust himself to speak.

"You change your mind, I'm down the hall. And listen up, 'cause this is important. If you feel like you need some company, you get scared maybe – and believe me, that's normal when you're outta your familiar spaces – if you get sad, maybe something's making you angry, you don't like something, then you come get me. Alright?"

Jesse stands up when Tim nods. "And don't get all Ranger-stupid proud on me when you need some help. That shit won't do you any good in here – just make everything harder for you and then that walk out the door will take longer. Being bad-ass might work with the ladies but there ain't no ladies in here."

Tim tries a smile. Jesse grins for him again.

"If you were on the base in 2006 then you might remember that fine looking young thing, all curvy, who ran the barber shop? Mmm-mmm." He makes some vaguely descriptive hand motions.

"Sure it wasn't a camel?"

"You're hilarious."

Tim thinks back, shakes his head. "I remember the DFAC and my bunk. I wasn't on base long enough to see much else. Sleep, eat, load up, Oscar Mike, double-time. Rinse, lather, repeat."

The description brings it into focus for Jesse; Tim can tell and he's sorry he's the one responsible for the grin disappearing. But it comes back and Jesse grips Tim's shoulder, gives it a little shake.

"Don't you worry about nothing, you hear? You just look after yourself. Get some rest. Doctor wants to see you later. Like I said, I'm just down the hall. Call me if you can't find your ass to wipe it, being a Ranger and all."

He laughs again, drops his arm and leaves. The door closes behind him.

Tim stares at the room then stares at the bed then moves over and lies down on it. There are three doors in this room too – a door to the hall without a window this time, a closet, a bathroom. The ceiling looks the same as in the old room. Tim draws his knees up and drops an arm over his eyes.

* * *

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	6. Chapter 6

**An Insane World – Chapter Six**

This room is different.

There are tiny hints of personality, on the verge of messy, with stacks of books on the desk because the bookshelf is overrun, a UCLA mug and a banana peel next to the computer keyboard, a lingering smell of coffee and rotting fruit, small colorful figurines, Super Mario and Yoshi, sitting incongruously on a thick text of pharmaceuticals. But it's still a hospital. It's got the fluorescent ceiling lights, the shiny linoleum floor, the same generic trash can that's in every room, except this one has a plastic bag in it. There are no plastic bags allowed inside the ward.

Tim stands framed in the doorway, a portrait of nothing, teetering, or maybe that's an illusion. He can't tell anymore; he's not certain of anything.

The doctor stands up and walks over to greet him, hands in his pockets, forced casual is how Tim reads it. Tim dislikes him, distrusts him. The feeling comes on strong and immediate.

"Morning, Tim." A smile. "Uh…I'm not sure if you'll remember me. I'm Dr. Sullivan. Call me Alex though. Why don't you have a seat? Any chair you like…"

Tim was expecting gray hair and glasses. At least the guy has glasses, he thinks. He leans forward, tips himself into the room, reluctant. He pauses on the way to a chair, chews on his lip, reads the titles on a few of the books, wants to pick one up just to hold it. But it's the plastic bag that stops him cold. He can't keep his eyes off the plastic bag. It's so normal. Something wells up looking at it.

"You know, I could easily have you hog-tied on the floor with your belt, and off myself with that plastic bag before you could hit the panic button. You ever watch anyone die, Alex?"

The threat sounds empty to his ears – he doesn't even know why he said it except that he refuses to be sad. He wants to be pissy, another bad night's sleep after God knows how much time spent in drug-induced exhausting nothingness, and maybe he wants to see what happens when someone does press the panic button. It might make him feel like he's living again. This limbo is hell.

Dr. Sullivan looks nervous and Tim feels a nudge of guilt but he doesn't care enough to do anything about it except make note of it. He's submerged and it's thick and he can't fight his way out to help himself let alone this man. He picks out a seat in the pause, pushes it against the wall facing the door and nearest to the garbage can, sits, arms crossed, and waits.

Dr. Sullivan is still standing, reaches behind him feeling for the arm of his chair and sits too, not taking his eyes off Tim.

"The, uh…panic button is a constant reminder of the risks that make it necessary for me to have it, but you know, being hog-tied with my own belt never crossed my mind as a reason to need to use it."

Alex is going for cavalier and for some reason it unnerves Tim. He feels exposed, under a spotlight and he hates it. He says off-hand, trying to regain some ground, "Shit, you know I wouldn't do it."

"Which? Off yourself or hog-tie me?"

Tim gives him his best level US Marshal glare. "Off myself."

Alex smiles back. "I hope not, but that still leaves me with the hog-tying to worry about."

There's a pause then while they each try to get the measure of the other.

"Look," says Alex, backing off first, "if you're thinking I've already got you all figured out – I don't. That's not how this works. About all I know is your age, that you're a US Marshal, formerly an Army Ranger, and that you don't react well to Lorazepam. So you're going to have to tell me everything else." He opens a folder on his desk. "Why are you here, Tim?"

Tim has no idea, no answer to give. He loses his train of thought and the silence drags on, long enough that he forgets that it's his turn to talk. Dr. Sullivan clears his throat and Tim snaps back to the room and blurts out what's uppermost on his mind.

"What did I do? Did I hurt somebody?"

"No. No, you didn't hurt anybody." Alex gives the answer, watches the reaction carefully.

Tim studies the doctor's face looking for deception. He doesn't appear to be lying. Tim feels dizzy – the relief overwhelms him and the exhaustion is crushing. "I wasn't sure if… I can't remember anything."

Alex reinforces the statement. "You didn't do anything wrong, Tim. You didn't hurt anybody." Then he continues, "Not remembering what happened could be a side effect of the medication you're on or it could be your mind blocking it out…for now. Either way, I'm here to help you sort through all this. What can you tell me about your time here so far?"

"My time here?" Tim shrugs. "Not much. I don't even remember how I got here. And no one will tell me…" Tim's voice rises in frustration; he rises with it, shuffles to the window and it wears him out just getting there. He drops his forehead against the metal grate covering the glass. He just wants to get back to his room and sleep, or try to. This is tiring and stupid and he was hoping for something more. What though, he doesn't know. Something. An explanation maybe. He dismisses the doctor with a word, "Fuck."

"Alright, look… I know this must be frustrating and confusing, and I want to help you – I _can _help you – but to do that I need to understand what it is you're going through. We can start with this moment… with how you're feeling right now. Would that work? Can we talk about that?"

Tim shakes his head by rolling it back and forth on the window. "How about you talk? I'm too fucking tired to talk. That's all I am. I'm fucking tired. You want to know what I'm going through? I don't know. No one will tell me. I haven't a fucking clue. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know when I got here. I don't know what fucking day it is. I don't know if I'm in trouble. Did I hit my head? Am I sick? Is there something wrong with me? I'm tired of this bullshit. But mostly I'm just tired, okay?" He turns and glares. "Can you do something with that?"

"Yes, we can do something with that." Alex looks around his desk, picks up a small square pad of paper, a day calendar of cartoons, rips through the top eight and tosses them in the garbage can, the one with the plastic bag. "It's Monday." He smiles, taps the day's cartoon.

"It's Monday." Tim looks like someone just handed him a glass of water after a day in the desert. He drinks it down greedily, thirsty. _It's Monday._

Alex smiles, encouraging, gives him more. "You've been here for almost six days. You were admitted because you had a…a psychotic break, which means your mind temporarily distorts its sense of reality. You've been experiencing some delusions and panic attacks since you arrived and you've been given sedatives and anti-psychotics to calm things down, get things back under control, which might be partly why you're so tired. But…as for the reasons why all this is going on…" Alex shrugs, apologetic. "Only you know that, Tim, even if it might not seem like you do…just now."

He's teetering again, he can feel it, and the floor and the walls are moving. The doctor is not speaking English, Tim is sure he's not. Nothing he just said makes any sense but something clicks into place. He takes a shaky step and another and another and sits back in the chair. He drops his head and wraps his hands around the back of his neck.

"Fuck."

* * *

Tim doesn't sleep well, another night of restless exhaustion, intruding memories. There are no distractions here. His body is tired but his mind is ticking away – tick, tick. He can't stop thinking about those two words, _psychotic break. What the fuck?_

He's dressed and sitting on the chair, on the very edge of the chair, in his room. He stands, shuffles to the door and back, sits again, repeats the maneuver every ten minutes or so. He's not sure what time it is but he knows he has another meeting with the doctor this morning, his psychiatrist, Alex, the eager nerd with glasses and definitions and no real answers for him. There are questions lingering from yesterday and he's anxious to get to his appointment. He thinks it's probably a good thing they're sedating him right now. He spent half the night imagining putting a fist hard into the doctor's face, the rest of it trying to remember what happened to get him here and both halves of the night seem a waste of time with the feel of morning on him, nothing accomplished.

He looks around the room again for the clock he knows isn't there. What time is it? He has no idea, not really, can only guess and he doesn't trust his guesses. It could be 7am, it could be 10am. They've been pretty consistent delivering his little cup of pills though so Tim figures it has to be past eight.

Oddly it's coffee that steals its way into his thoughts, a whiff of it from the hallway or a memory. He misses his morning coffee. A morning coffee meant you were back on base after a night outside the wire. It meant you were safe, for now. He misses even the routine of making his coffee. He'd settle for decaf just for the familiar taste on his tongue, just for something familiar, his mug. Do they mean this to be torture? Is he paying for something he did? He feels emotions pushing, tears threatening to expose themselves, squeezes his eyes shut and wraps himself in his arms tightly. It passes.

There's someone at the door and Tim stands up quickly, too quickly, and the room spins, his mind spins, his whole world is out of control.

Jesse steps in and over to him, reaches out a steadying hand. "You okay, Tim?"

"Stood up too fast."

"You gotta stop partying all night, man. Or at least invite me along."

"There weren't enough girls to go around."

"I'd bring my own."

"Bring two. Same time every night. You know where I live."

There's a grin and a silent acknowledgment that it'll be some time before they can drink together. Tim likes Jesse. Jesse doesn't treat him like he'll shatter or hurt someone or hurt himself. Jesse talks to him, not _at_ him. It's a small piece of decency.

"You ready to go see Dr. Sullivan?"

Tim tilts his head and frowns. "Been ready since I left yesterday."

"Yeah? The novelty wears off. Trust me."

They head down the hall together. Jesse puts out an arm to steady Tim again at a corner.

"How's the knee?" Tim asks.

"Hell in this weather. You might even be glad to be inside. It's the wettest month ever."

"I don't mind the rain." It's wistful, pathetic, and Tim wishes he hadn't said it. He tries to cover it. "Not after all the dust. Whoever said 'dry heat's better' deserves a boot up the ass."

"You sleep okay last night?"

Tim tucks his chin down, looks away. "Yeah."

"You're so full of shit." Jesse glances over and catches Tim rubbing at his eyes. "You want me to talk to the doctor about it?"

"Is that a threat?"

And Jesse's laughing. He never gets offended. "Fine, I'll leave off saying anything until you collapse from exhaustion. Are all Rangers this stupid?"

"Nah, we're just not pussies like you Air Farce fairies, sleeping on your feather beds every night while the real soldiers sleep on the ground."

Jesse just keeps laughing. "You mean the real _stupid _soldiers."

Dr. Sullivan is waiting. He strikes Tim as the always-on-time type. _Probably goes to bed early and sleeps like a baby in striped pajamas,_ Tim thinks, and he's angry before the session even starts, working up to it all night. He steps into the office, doesn't give the door a chance to shut tightly behind him before he's on the offensive.

"I spent all night trying to remember something. It's not happening. We can talk all you want but can't you just tell me what happened? What's the point of dragging this out?" He sees the steam from the doctor's mug, feels the tears sneaking back, swallows hard. "Can I get a cup of coffee?"

"No one's trying to keep anything from you, Tim."

"Well, they're keeping coffee from me."

Alex stands up and they're at an equal level now, eye to eye.

"I can't tell you what it is that you're not remembering because I honestly don't know. I can't read your mind and I sure as hell won't try to guess. All I can do is listen and figure this out _with _you. You want answers. I get that. You're free to ask me anything – nothing is off limits in here, okay? I, uh…I don't have a quick solution for this. But I will never lie to you."

He walks over to the door and closes it properly, takes his glasses off to clean them, puts them back on. "And sure, yeah, here. Have my coffee." He picks up the mug sitting on his desk, holds it out. "It's not great, but it's fresh." He glances over at Tim with a faint smile. "You look like you need it worse than me. I hope you like it black."

Fists and tears are battling and Tim's backing fists, but he's too tired to keep up the fight. Tears win. The coffee offering is left hanging in the air and Alex watches helplessly as Tim crumbles – not enough sleep, the ground shifting. He makes it to the nearest chair and collapses, sobs openly, can't hide so he hides his face in his hands. It's not enough but he's past caring. The coffee smells good. It smells good.

* * *

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	7. Chapter 7

**An Insane World – Chapter Seven**

Jesse's right, Tim thinks. He's not so anxious to see Dr. Sullivan this time. They brought him coffee this morning and he figures it's the doctor's doing, so at least he can thank him for that. He's sitting up on his bed. He's made it properly just for something to do that doesn't take too much thinking, tight military corners, but now he's messing the top of it and he doesn't care, leaning against the wall with his arms wrapped around his knees, waiting.

Jesse knocks, peeks in the door, takes it all in, walks over and sits on the bed too. "Hey brother, not so keen today, huh?"

Tim shifts his eyes sideways to look at him. He doesn't mind looking at Jesse. Jesse spent fourteen months on a base in southern Afghanistan. He was mostly bored there, mostly, but still he saw things and heard things and felt the effects of war on a country and on the men flown in and trucked outside the wire. He and Tim exchanged a few stories as Tim slowly got accustomed to his reality on this ward. It was an anchor, talking to someone about something familiar. He's not as afraid when Jesse's around.

"You're right. The novelty wears off."

"But not usually this fast, man. You okay?"

"I don't know. Am I? If I was, would I be here?"

"Brother, if you weren't okay, you _wouldn't_ be here. That's the way it works. I've seen it. I know. They need _you_ to figure out that you're okay. Then when you leave, you won't be doubting yourself. And right now, I can see it – brother, you're doubting yourself, big time."

"They'll just tell me it's the meds."

"It's not the meds, man. It's you. You got to get your mojo back."

"My mojo?" And Tim starts to chuckle. It's a foreign sound in this room. Jesse chuckles with him. Tim tilts his head a little to the left. It reminds him of before, a small bit of himself peeking out from hiding. "Alright, take me to see the wizard."

"That's the way, brother. Have faith."

* * *

"I don't want to talk about Afghanistan! I got nothing to say that means anything. I understand shit about it and I was _there_. I want to talk about why I'm here. Why am I here? What happened? What did I do?"

Alex chews his lip, he looks uncertain. "Tim, I'm not going to describe for you the events from the day you were admitted. It would be counterproductive and I sincerely don't know much. But you didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do _anything."_

"That's bullshit. If I didn't do anything wrong then why can't I go home?"

Tim's seeing all the outlines today. Things are settling into place, at least the things he knows. He's slotted them into his life, his outside life, his life before the hospital, and he's aware of today and yesterday. But there's a shutdown in communication between his body and his brain that apparently lasted almost a week and it's gnawing at his sanity and he's desperate to throw a bright light on it, sort it out and slot it in too. Then he wants out of here. He's angry at somebody but he's not sure who and Alex is available and Alex has the title, so he's yelling at him.

"This is all bullshit! What aren't you telling me?"

"I've told you everything I can about what happened and I'm sorry that it's, uh…it's not a lot of hard facts. But you've got to trust me on this – you haven't done anything wrong. The events on that day are only important because they were meaningful to _you _somehow. I need _you_ to remember the circumstances that triggered the psychosis. I'm hoping when you do remember that we can figure out why it had the effect on you that it did. I think something on that day, uh…struck a nerve a little too close to another memory. And we have to work backward, work with what we've got. You've just been through something very traumatic and we need to talk about it, about what you're experiencing…"

Tim's pacing, stops and stares hard at Alex. The anger is large today, too big for the room. Tim yells through it, "How can I have been through something very traumatic, but _nothing the fuck happened?"_ He picks up the garbage bin with the plastic bag neatly tucked in it and heaves it across the room and it bounces hollow off the wall and the bag and the contents spill out onto the floor, then he slams open the door and walks out.

Alex jumps up and out the door, paging Jesse as he goes. He doesn't bother trying to run Tim down but follows at a distance.

Tim rounds a corner and almost collides with the nurse. He sees Jesse signal to someone behind him and he swivels fast, ready, facing Alex. He almost loses his balance.

Jesse is there, again steadying him. "Whoa, slow down Mr. Eveready. Geez, you'd think we were in a dark alley in Kabul. Had enough for today, have you? I bet Dr. Sullivan is tired of your sorry ass too. Do you two need to kiss and make up?"

Tim glares down the hall at Alex but Alex only gives him a smile back.

"All's good," says Alex. "You sleeping okay, Tim?"

Tim backs up to lean against the wall, won't look at either of them. "I'm fine."

"Okay, uh… We'll see you tomorrow then." Alex smiles again, turns and walks away.

Jesse whistles through the tension, whittles it away ridiculously and tunelessly. Tim chuckles finally.

"You alright?" says Jesse.

Tim presses his lips tightly, eyebrows up then down, fatigue in the drop. "I don't wanna talk about Afghanistan. You understand." He repeats Jesse's cue – one veteran to another.

"I get it." Jesse repeats back Tim's reply to him from that first day they met then adds some, "You're a bad-ass Ranger, a mother-fucking Marshal. Nothing gets to you. Nothing can penetrate that thick wall of stupidity."

"Fuck you."

Jesse laughs. "And you wonder why I went Air Force. Fucking dumbass Army muscleheads."

Tim pushes away from the wall and he and Jesse walk the corridor back to his room.

"I'm gonna complain to management about your language."

Jesse unlocks the door at the ward. "Oh, is that so? Well, I'm gonna tell Dr. Sullivan about your invisible friends."

"Hey, they're all the friends I got."

"So you're a _pathetic _fucking dumbass Army musclehead."

The chuckles are a little looser this time.

* * *

Alex closes the door to his office and stands there lost. That was the shortest session he's ever had – ten minutes, a new record. He looks at his watch and thinks he'll get caught up on some administrative work but gives up before he sits down. He's too agitated. He decides to spend the extra fifty minutes he has this morning with Sophia.

He drags his feet walking to the ward, thinking about Tim, trying to picture him in Afghanistan. He has no idea how to start drawing that picture and wonders if he should find out more about it, Operation Enduring Freedom – wonderful epithet that – everyone involved is walking around forever in a prison. He knows he's kidding himself. Any information he could get his hands on would be like a blurb on a jacket cover of the real story, and the real story is nothing but blank pages because it'll never get written and it would be different every time anyway. So what's the point. He finishes up thinking he's probably better off hearing Tim's experiences with ears untainted by spin and slant. Memory is water – you can't hold it, fluid, changing, not a good foundation. And it's all he and Tim have to work with.

Alex arrives at Sophia's door more quickly than he intended. He takes a deep breath and walks in, enters her nightmare.

He's disappointed to see it's Christina again on watch. She starts in on him, hissing, telling him her tale of woe when he appears, a verbal spray of the events that played out that morning. She's still riled up, voice shrill with contempt, convinced that Alex will sympathize.

"She was drinking water, finally. But then she peed all over the bed. She did it out of spite. I know it. I could see it in her face. It was hell getting her into the shower. She scratched my arms up real bad. Look!"

He doesn't. He motions for her to leave and she's out the door fast. Alex's eyes stay fixed for a moment on a beam of light smudged across the floor, a little bit of sun in the murky dusk. The room still stinks of urine even through the heavy scent of caramel from the meal replacement drink sitting untouched on the table, a pink straw sticking up past the rim of the glass, listless and leaning.

_The pink straw is fucking ridiculous,_ he thinks, and avoids looking at it. It makes him depressed.

Sophia's asleep or faking it – he's not sure which. Her eyelashes cast spider-leg shadows down her cheeks. She's had a hard day and it's still early. He lets his annoyance at the nurse stew for a bit. Christina doesn't like her job, she doesn't like the patients, she can't handle her spray tan getting wrinkled. She's in the wrong place.

Maybe he's in the wrong place. He straightens his back and tries to pull his resolve up from where it's slipped around his feet. A cigarette would be nice. He shakes the thought, gropes for some optimism.

Sophia's deadly still – Alex has to focus his eyes carefully to see the slight rise and fall of her chest under the blanket – but she moved today, he reminds himself, she held a glass, had something to drink, put up a fight. It doesn't matter if it was spite. It was _something_.

He repeats it to himself all day. _It was something. _

_Little things, that's what you have to live for._ Bridget's advice pops into his head and drags along with it an idea. Alex stops by the men's ward on his way out at the end of the day, gives Jesse a small voice recorder for Tim, leaves instructions.

"Tell him to record anything that comes to mind…when he feels up to it…uh, when he's alone. He can erase anything if he doesn't want me to hear it but… Well, it's better if he doesn't. Tell him I'll be the only one listening to it."

Jesse thwacks Alex's shoulder and knocks him sideways. "I'm on it, Doc."

"Uh…thanks."

* * *

There's no booze here. So tonight Tim wishes he'd taken up smoking though that's probably not allowed either – it would set off the alarms. He needs something quiet to do with his hands fidgeting idle in the still hours of the night, something to hide the shaking, something to fill the time when he isn't sleeping but doesn't want to wake the dead, his fellow inmates, all of them shuffling and sharing their troubles in a droning rhythmic hum. He's tired of it, tired of hearing it, tired of hearing his own voice in the chorus and sleeping days to avoid it, pacing the ward at night or sitting by the window in his room hoping to be somewhere else in the morning. It's useless. Here he is, still.

What did he do? What did he do wrong?

Tim lets himself go and it comes out in a stream of tears, then a growl of shame. Crying never solved anything. He feels unarmed, untrained for this battle. The doctor's given him one tool – one – so he might as well use it. He's aggressive rubbing the evidence of futility off of his cheeks and his chin, wiping his hands dry roughly on his sweatpants, then he leans over and grabs the small voice recorder and gives his frustration the soap box until he's tired enough to try sleeping again.

* * *

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	8. Chapter 8

**An Insane World – Chapter Eight**

It's another day of rain and he's so tired of rain. Alex steps out of his car and into a pothole in the parking lot, sinks ankle-deep in cold water, mutters a string of curses at himself for not wearing his boots and wishes for the hundredth time since the alarm woke him this morning that he hadn't decided to quit smoking. He takes the long route through the first floor past the emergency room vending machines and grabs a bag of M&Ms for breakfast, peanut for protein. The air in the office is stale but that first sip of fresh coffee – that one little sip_ –_ it's worth living for. He thinks of Tim Gutterson and the coffee he's hopefully enjoying right now, then takes off his soggy shoes and socks, puts them on the radiator to dry and lounges back in his chair with his cold feet perched up on the desk. Emptying out the packet of M&Ms he starts with the red ones _–_ it's that kind of morning.

Tim is his first appointment for the day, this will be his fifth time seeing him, and his thoughts keep sliding there. He flips through the notes in his file, hoping he'll find a cue on the pages, but the words are the same as they were yesterday and nothing speaks to him. He chews at his pen, thinks this job is all u-turns and switch backs.

"I read somewhere that skipping breakfast can be bad for your health."

She never knocks, not even when the door's closed, but he doesn't mind.

"Hello, Bridget, didn't hear you knock."

"Chocolate?"

"I'll have you know, M&M's are part of a… _Holy shit."_ He finally pulls his head out of the file and looks at her. She's waterlogged. "Did you swim here?"

"I wisely decided that the rainiest day of the rainiest week of the year was a good day to ride my bike to work."

"It's a Dutch thing, isn't it?"

"Don't be racist or I'll hit you with my wooden clog. You were looking for me?"

"Yeah." Alex drops his feet to the floor and sits up at attention, attempts to collect his thoughts, form a question for her. "It's about this new patient... I don't know... Is it a military thing? It's just… It's impossible to get him to trust me. It's obvious he doesn't. There is so much hiding just...and I can see it, and he's talking but... Sure, I can make a reasonable assessment... Still, he's keeping me out of the loop. He's keeping _himself_ out of the loop. I'm used to gratuitous gut-spilling. I can't get anything worth anything from him. We're absolutely stalled. What's different? How do I get him to engage during a session, to commit to his treatment?"

"You're asking me for advice again? You little shit, thanks for making me feel old."

"Bridget, you're too cool to be old."

"I'm too old for flattery. Try again."

He pouts. "Pretty please? Any ideas? Anything?"

"You look prepubescent pleading like that." She flops into a chair, thinks about it. "It's your Marshal, right? The Afghanistan veteran?"

He nods.

"They dole out their trust sparingly, Junior."

"Yeah, thanks. I figured out that much."

"Alex, you're not going to like any advice I have – it's your age, cutie-pie, you're too young, so impatient."

"Can you fucking help me, please?"

She holds his look, his frustration evident, on the surface. She relents. "Okay, since you asked so nicely, here it is: Stop rushing it. It's a relationship, not a race."

"That's it?"

"That's it, all my experience. You can leave the nest now."

"But…" Alex shakes his head, disbelieving.

"But?" Bridget shakes her head, mimicking him, mocking.

"But I'm not getting anywhere. And I mean _nothing. _Seriously, I feel like…"

She holds up her index finger, stalling his objections. "Just take one session, or a couple if you need to, and _don't_ try to push him forward. If he takes the lead, all the better – it'll make him feel like he's got some control back. Let him get to know you, give a little of yourself, there's no harm in it…usually. War is forever etched into his psyche, and war is the ultimate team sport. He needs to know you're playing on his side. You have to build some credibility with him."

Alex looks doubtful mulling the advice. "But how do I do that?"

She answers with a small shrug. "Give it time. And if you actually listen to my advice and do as I say, I'll buy you lunch. How's that for motivation?"

Looking back at the useless scribblings in his file, Alex sighs.

"12:30?"

"Yeah, sure, it's a date." He answers without thinking, distracted by the mountain.

"Your enthusiasm is flattering, but don't get any ideas. I'm too old for you. And put on some shoes. We have regulations here – no shirt, no shoes, no service."

Alex opens his bottom drawer and throws a pair of flip-flops at her.

* * *

The morning staff meeting is quick. Frank is back from vacation with a vacantly happy look and a tan, laughs when he sees Alex's bare feet, so it's a bit of a surprise when he starts yelling about the budget cuts seconds later. Alex spends a free half hour after that buried in a stack of books, thinking hard about _not_ thinking too hard about too specific a game plan for Tim's session because plans never work anyway, they just distract from what's important. He's itching so badly for a cigarette he accidentally overdoses on coffee and gets jittery. Then it's ten o'clock and Tim's standing in the doorway looking resigned and self-conscious but a bit more focused today too. His hands are shaking and he tries to hide it, tucks them up under his arms.

Alex wonders if the medication dose is too strong, opens the file to check.

"Come on in, Tim. Have a seat."

Tim moves deliberately, slowly. He scans the office, eyes lingering on the bookshelf again before pulling his regular chair back against the wall and sitting down, then arms back guarding, crossed tightly over his chest. He notices the bare feet, the flip-flops.

"Jesus Cruisers? It's not summer, dude."

"What?"

"Are you going native on us? Or do they not pay you enough to buy proper footwear?"

Alex has forgotten the bare feet, too focused on other things. He casts an involuntary glance over at the radiator, his shoes and socks toasty and dry now, lets out an embarrassed chuckle. "Uh…yeah. Actually, I should warn you, I'm from California. It resurfaces now and again, but please don't hold it against me." He's dry and sardonic, even if his pant cuffs are still wet.

Tim follows Alex's gaze and sees the shoes drying. "Should you be leaving those shoelaces just out there like that?"

"Why? Are you thinking about hog-tying me again?"

It looks like the prodigal son, the grin that creeps home onto Tim's face. "Oh, I could do a lot with a belt and a pair of shoelaces."

"Yeah? So you're like MacGyver."

"Yeah, sure, MacGyver. I don't remember – does he shoot people for a living, too?"

The grin's gone. Alex watches Tim carefully, watches the shadows of emotions that flicker across Tim's face before he reins them all in, eyes deflecting. Alex thinks he could use this, turn it around and push back, but Bridget's words bounce around his head, jump up and down looking for attention. Maybe she's right, he thinks, maybe it is too soon. He lifts an eyebrow, gets up and walks over to collect his socks, sits on a chair by the radiator and puts them on.

"MacGyver – he would take everyday things, belts and shoelaces, and use them to achieve his goals, like creating a distraction, for example. I remember he made a smoke screen out of pesticide and a frying pan once. I used to think he was so cool when I was I kid."

He lets the silence last between them, leaving some space open for Tim to fill. Tim stays quiet though, looking down at his hands loose now in his lap and fidgeting with his sleeves.

The tremors are on display and Alex comments. "It's hard to do much knot tying with shaky hands. Is it bothering you?"

Tim won't look at him. He frowns, stuffs his offending hands self-consciously under his legs but they slide out again and start playing with the hem of his hoodie. He begins to speak. "You know what makes me good with a rifle? I'm steady – steady hands, steady eyes, steady breathing, steady, every bit of me. Consistent, always, you know? Same position every time. It's repetition that does it, and patience and steady hands." He stops fidgeting, opens his fingers out to highlight the tremors. He looks disgusted. "Is this permanent?" Before Alex can answer, Tim's up and shuffling to the window again and clenching his shaking into fists of anger. "Fuck it. They probably won't let me near a rifle again anyway."

"It's not permanent, Tim. Shaking, muscle tremors – it's a common side effect of your medication. There could be other things as well that show up and we can talk about it whenever you need to, alright? We'll go through the list and figure out what's what."

"The _list?_ Jesus. Can't I just stop taking them?"

Alex can't help looking apologetic and Tim slumps back to the chair.

"I'm not going home 'til I remember, am I? That's just the way it is, isn't it?"

"Are you bored here, Tim?"

"Bored? Yes. No. My fucking life is hanging… I'm not bored, I'm desperate." The hands go roughly over his hair again, in every session the same. "You must be bored. I keep saying the same things – running in circles. Aren't you frustrated? Fuck, I am."

* * *

It's an overcrowded lunch hour, buzzing with lunch hour pulse, plates clattering and voices clashing. They're sitting by the window. Alex is watching Bridget frown, confounded over his excessively ketchup-drenched french fries. He waves one in front of her to get her attention; she clears her throat and picks up the conversation they started earlier.

"It's just Frank's way, junior. He crawls up your ass – he likes it up there. Be patient, give it some time. You'll learn to appreciate the constant pressure, like a pillar of support, a wedge to lean back on." Her laugh at the visual she's painted is big and toothy, catchy.

A grin sneaks its way onto Alex's face and he huffs and pushes his plate away so he can lean on the table.

"It's not just Frank," he says, drops the french fry back on his plate, the grin with it. "It's the whole administrative process – the insurance company, Sophia's family. They've, uh…hired an attorney, _just in case,_ they tell me. I don't know what to do. How am I gonna make the right decision for her when I'm pinned under all this? It's like she's reduced to this pile of paperwork and legal shit and all I can do is sign it and file it and fuck... It's wrong. It's all wrong."

Bridget's quiet, her gaze steadily fixed on his face, a nudge to keep talking. She picks up her fork and spears an onion.

Alex stares at it; he knows how it feels, that onion. He grimaces in sympathy and continues his rant, "I'm following all the guidelines, doing it by the book, but what if the guidelines and books are wrong for her? Maybe she needs something different, a new approach, a new point of view entirely. Sometimes I just, uh…I just wanna get her off all the drugs and get her out, you know? Get her out of that depressing fucking room with that depressing fucking smell…"

"You do realize you've spent this entire lunch so far dodging the issue you actually want to discuss?"

"How's the salad?"

"The cafeteria dressing is divine," she says flatly. "Are you done eating?"

"No." He starts picking at his lunch again.

"Alex, Sophia is not going to hop out of bed tomorrow and eat breakfast and you know it."

"I could try the drip again…"

"And she'll pull it out and hurt herself, _again_."

"Did you know she used to be a riding instructor?" Alex punctuates his points with a fry. "She trained jockeys and she actually competed for a while too. She's still got a horse, uh…somewhere outside of town. Her mom's taking care of it."

"Alex…"

He's caught up in his thoughts, looking down at his food and then out into the swirling rain and the flow of people trying to hold onto their umbrellas and jacket collars. "I'm not gonna give up on her."

"Alex…"

"What?"

"Tell me about your sister."

She says it so innocently, but Alex knows her better.

"What?" He snaps it out.

"Your sister, Alex. What did she do?"

"Bridget…" Alex picks up the bottle of ketchup, unscrews the lid and then screws it back on, stalling. He can feel her unwavering, blunt-force silence pressing him down. He looks up, trying hard not to look sad, and meets her eyes, gives her a fond smile. "…piss off."

Bridget sighs and kicks his boot under the table. "Are you going to eat those?"

"Yeah."

She takes a few fries anyway, moves along, her point made. "How'd it go with your veteran this morning?"

He frowns but it's thoughtful not guarded.

"If you ask, they'll reassign him," she says, eyes mischievous.

Alex sets the ketchup down and crams the last of the fries into his mouth before she can take anymore. "I'm giving him some space like you suggested. He's on emotional lock-down. It's impressive. But I'm not giving up on him, either."

"That's my boy."

* * *

0000000000000


	9. Chapter 9

**An Insane World – Chapter Nine**

His neighbor, Mrs. Meyer, and her morbidly obese Shih Tzu catch Alex just outside his apartment door and pin him there. He's still looking for his keys, can't make a clean escape. She bustles over and leans in close, eyes creased at the corners from her haughty smile. She's in perfect gossip mode – this time it's her niece's husband's alleged gambling problem – and Alex pretends to listen, staring at the dog who stares right back. It's beyond comprehension, the speed and ease with which Mrs. Meyer keeps up a one-sided conversation, and his already rain-soggy takeout boxes of Chinese noodles are getting cold. So five minutes going on five hours later he coughs, loud enough to dramatically derail her chatter, makes a borderline rude excuse and slams the door in her face.

He leans back against the wall with his eyes closed and allows himself to miss California and sunshine for a moment. He doesn't miss much else about the place.

The noodles are bland and rubbery when he finally gets to them, wet cardboard flavor. Alex uses the chopsticks in the paper that came with his dinner because he can't find a clean fork. He glances over at a week's worth of dishes stacked in the sink, thinks that he should maybe take care of that. It's one more thing piled on top of everything else and he starts feeling powerless, at the shore watching the tsunami roll in and nothing he can do about it. It reminds him of a day on the beach near where he grew up, the morning after a storm and he's walking on the sand counting dead gulls and fish and crabs scattered wretchedly. He remembers being sad, feelings of futility.

He decides to do some work to pull himself out of this self-pitying undertow. Tim's recorder is in his pocket. He puts it on the table and starts it. There's a rustling sound, something that might be a snort, derision, then Tim's voice, quiet. Alex doesn't get his hopes up.

"So there's something in all the shit in my past that's supposed to help me out here? I don't see it. I don't see the point of dragging all that up. Seriously. It's not like you can undo anything.

"Alright, so…what? I should just ramble into this thing? You said you're looking for a key to a room? What room? And, yeah, I know you're being metaphorical. Can't someone just say it's a room like this? Can you give me some hint what I'm looking for? 'Cause it's just not there. _It's not there._ Maybe there is no room.

"I have a buddy who's seeing a psychologist. The psychologist said that his flashbacks are a type of psychosis, memories intruding on reality or something like that. Psychosis... I met a psychic once through work – maybe she could come by and help us out. I'm willing to try anything just to get the fuck outta here."

Alex huffs a short laugh, pauses the recording to get a notepad and a pen and pour himself some tequila, the good aged kind, a gift from Bridget for his birthday. He settles on the couch, TV on mute, and forgets all about the mess in the kitchen. Tim is actually talking.

"And just how does a mind keep secrets from itself? That makes no sense…

"Aw, fuck, but it does make sense, really. I mean, there are things that I remember – I don't drag them up too often, least not on purpose – things that I wish my mind would shut out. Like I remember that time that Stover – his name was Steve, but we all called him Stover – anyway, Stover was… Shit, see, I don't like to bring up that memory. But I have to, right? You said to just record anything that comes to mind, so… Anyway, Stover, he… It was a mine. I just… He… I just remember helping pick up… Could've put him in that white box with his stuff, some of the pieces were small enough. I hated collecting a guy's stuff for the box. I had to do it a couple of times. It's supposed to be something to send back… I dunno, fucking memorabilia, I guess. That'd be hilarious putting in the bits instead. Here's an ear. Fuck. He was married – I remember that – so I guess it's supposed to remind his wife that there was once a man named Stover, Steve. Not anymore. He was a good guy. A bit of a geek, but he had your six. He never swore – I found that kinda weird considering... I didn't have patrols with him much. He wasn't on the sniper teams, but I remember him.

"I think the white boxes are way sadder than coffins.

"There's other stuff too that I'm wishing I didn't have the key for, rooms of shit that just shouldn't be remembered, just shouldn't _be _period. And not all of it from Afghanistan.

"When you're in law enforcement, the worst is when you have a case with kids getting hurt or dying. It's bad – it's hard for people to get past it and get on with it. But, I dunno, I seem kind of immune. I think I saw enough of it already. It wears you flat. Now I'm just like, _oh fuck, not this again._ I don't think Rachel understands it. I don't think even Raylan does. Art maybe – he looks at me when I do that thing and go flat, and he feels bad, I can tell. I hate it from most people but it's okay from him. It's funny how that is.

"I'm rambling. I suppose you're used to it though, huh, Alex? You're expecting rambling, aren't you? I just don't remember what you all want me to remember. I figured out enough from a few things people here have said to know that what got me in here was something that happened at work. But no one will tell me what it was. I'm scared to remember. Everyone said I didn't hurt anyone, but I don't know if I believe it. I know what I'm trained to do.

"So here's a question for you, Alex – a little Catch-22 – if I don't ever remember will they ever let me out? And if I do remember, maybe it'll fuck me up and then I won't ever get out. I'm kinda feeling like I'm screwed here.

"There's something waiting for me, I know it, and I don't think I want to remember it."

Alex plays the recording to the end, restarts it from the beginning and listens again. It surprises him. There's more here than he'd hoped for. He scribbles down more notes than is probably necessary and falls asleep on the couch to the mute images of _Deadliest Catch_ on Discovery Channel and the raspy and deep flow of Tim's voice. He wakes later, interrupting a dream about crabs exploding in ocean-colored cascades, mushy flesh and spidery orange legs scattered across the dusty pavement.

* * *

The office looks bleak and lifeless in the gray light from outside. The storm, the heavy rain and wind, beat against the glass and Tim feels like he's on a ship, not like a pleasure cruise though, and this one's sinking.

Alex stands by the bookshelf behind his desk, his hair messy. He looks young. He smiles over and Tim tries to smile back.

"Hey, Tim."

"Hey." Tim remembers how big this room felt the first time, like something could happen here; today it feels small, insufficient somehow, a speck in the storm.

"Come on in. I, uh…I was thinking. I noticed before that you were looking at the books and I thought if you want something to read maybe there's something… I don't know. It's mostly old course material but… Do you read much?"

"Not since I got here." Tim turns his entire body around to face the door to illustrate what he's about to say, gestures vaguely. "Jesse…um, the nurse, he lent me a book." He turns back, slowly. "It's a thriller. I can't concentrate enough to read the fucking thing. I read a sentence and then," he rolls his hand, "read it again. It doesn't stick."

"Huh, might be the medication."

Tim lifts an eyebrow, doesn't bother to hide his frustration.

Alex turns quickly and searches the shelf, finds a slim paperback tucked into a corner and pulls it out. "What's it about, uh…the thriller?"

"I don't know," Tim snaps. "Like I told you, I haven't got past the first fucking paragraph."

Alex grimaces realizing it was a stupid question. He covers it with some humor. "Maybe Jesse just has really shitty taste in books and it's not you at all. Here, try this one."

Tim takes the book on offer, eyes the cover dully, reads the title. "Tao Te Ching? Are you shittin' me?"

"That's _the_ Tao Te Ching." Alex adds some enthusiastic hand movements. "There's some heavy wisdom in that tiny little book, man."

"Maybe you're the one with shitty taste in books."

Alex laughs, once. "Maybe. But humor me. Try it."

Tim knows he's stuck here for the hour, so he'd better fill it. He opens the book randomly, a good distraction from talking about himself, reads, _"Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them."_ He looks at the doctor. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

Alex slumps into his chair, silently curses a poor choice of phrasing by the translator. _"No._ No. Uh…it's not like you have to agree with it all." He scratches his head, a bit awkward, the beginnings of a smile tugging at his face. "That sentence though, it's gonna stick, isn't it?"

Tim reads it again; Alex watches him mouth it silently.

"Yeah, it's gonna stick alright." Tim sidles up to his chair against the wall, sits slowly. "And what does that say about me, Doc?" He flips through the book, stops at another random page, reads, _"The Tao doesn't take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil."_ He huffs. "Isn't that contradicting the last bit?"

Alex sits up, thinking. "Yeah, it is kinda, isn't it? Maybe contradictions are just part of human nature, something we can't ever escape?"

Tim is still thinking about it, sluggish, misses his cue to comment.

Alex plows on. "Or, maybe one is about the nature of the, uh…Force, and the other one is more focused on the Jedi. What do you think it says about you that this sentence sticks but you can't get through the first paragraph of a crappy thriller?"

"That maybe I don't like crappy thrillers, or maybe I'd make a shitty Jedi Knight – I'm not very mindful."

"Yeah, okay."

* * *

There isn't anything that doesn't bring back something. A cup of coffee is the respite of making it to base alive from that helo crash that one time; tying up laces is a glimpse back to that day Stover broke his getting ready and didn't live through the patrol; hard candy is that morning he grabbed a red one from the gunner on the truck and sucked on it as they sped through the outskirts of Kabul throwing the bright sweets out ahead of them and to the side to scatter the kids and get them off the road.

There was an IED waiting for them at the next intersection under some construction debris.

That was a good day. Someone in the lead truck spotted it, called it and they stopped – three hours sitting security with the convoy waiting on EOD to disarm the explosives. He didn't want their job. It was hot that day in the sun between the buildings, hot under his helmet with his rifle too big to be really useful. He and his team finally got permission to climb to the top of the nearest building with two others for security, scaring the locals who lived there. They set up on the roof, back to back, and swept their respective 180s looking for a guy with a phone. It was a tense three hours, weirdly quiet. They turned the convoy around afterward, plans all shot to hell, went back to base, filled balloons with water and had a water fight. Somebody had brought the balloons from home, so balloons brought it all back too.

The memories are sometimes mixed up, incomplete, inaccurate, they might differ from what the gunner saw or what the driver remembered, but they're always vivid. Tim can smell the smells, feel the textures, taste the dust or dark or diesel. It's like he's there again, all over again, every feeling, every time. That's why he changes his laces often and loves his coffee.

And he reads his books.

He can't pinpoint the exact moment when he decided to leave the military. He'd planned to go till his knees gave out then apply for a transfer to the sniper school and train the new guys. It seemed like a good path and he loved shooting and the job was certainly entertaining. But at some point he couldn't shut it out anymore, couldn't shut it down, couldn't turn it off and on again. He stopped laughing as much, drank more and hid himself on his bunk down days, lost in a book.

He's through the Tao Te Ching in under an hour, starts to read the author's translation notes for something to do. It's not sticking and it gets him agitated. He can't focus. Then there are noises in the hall, angry voices, and he stands up behind the door, watches.

Jesse calls from the other side, "Tim, buddy, it's me. I'm coming in." He pokes his head around, grins. "We got us an argument about basketball, but I settled it. Told them I'd slam dunk their asses in a basket if they didn't keep it down. You alright?"

Tim nods and sinks back down on the bed.

"How's the book, man?" Jesse asks.

"Apparently you've got shitty taste in novels."

Jesse laughs and leaves.

Tim hears some more arguing, hears Jesse cajoling. It reminds him of the soccer game, the dust kicking up – he can taste it on his tongue – the sniper bullet sinking in the dirt near the group standing around arguing with the guy who offered to ref. They all scrambled for cover and Tim and two others went hunting. He was sitting in some shade when the bullet broke up the game, reading a shitty novel about vampires, so now vampires bring it all back.

He can't read a book about vampires without remembering that day. It was a successful hunt, more entertaining than the book.

* * *

00000000000000


	10. Chapter 10

**An Insane World – Chapter Ten**

Tim stands when she walks into the waiting area, old-fashioned manners that catch him off guard now and again and it makes him think of his mother. The woman notices the courtesy. She smiles for Jesse then for Tim then walks past them and peers into Alex's office.

"Where's our boy?" she asks, directs the question at Jesse.

"Not sure, Dr. van. It's not like him to be late."

"No, it's not."

She plants her hands on her hips reminding Tim of Art. She turns her attention to him now, face inscrutable; he stares back, unblinking.

"I'm Dr. van Campen," she says, "but everyone here calls me Bridget. You are…?"

Jesse makes a move to answer for him; she stops him with a hand. Tim watches the exchange and wonders what she's expecting from him, or not expecting. It feels like a test but it doesn't bother him, he's just curious and mostly relieved that she doesn't hold out a hand for a handshake. He's sick of feeling embarrassed about the tremors.

He replies with his name. "Tim Gutterson."

"Well, hello Tim Gutterson," she says. "Please, sit. I'm blushing."

"I think, Dr. van, it'd take more than good manners to make you blush. A lot more. You watch yourself with her, Tim. She's whip-smart and _nasty."_

Bridget pouts. "That's not very nice. I'll make sure to say something very nasty on your employee review."

Tim can tell from the way Jesse is talking that he likes the doctor.

"Am I gonna have to rat you out to Frank about your porn downloads?"

She puts a finger against her mouth, shhh. "Do that and I'll tell everyone about your Little Pony collection."

"Oh, now, see? That's nasty."

"Shock and awe – that's how I play." She drops onto the couch beside Tim. "Would you stay and talk with me until Alex arrives? Don't listen to Jesse – I'm really a very nice person. And you, rapscallion," she says, points her finger and narrows her eyes at the nurse, "run along. I know your ward is short-staffed today. You probably have better things to do than babysit Mr. Gutterson and me." She's back looking at Tim. "You don't mind, do you?"

"No, ma'am."

Her face is happiness, a child's wonder. "I'll never get tired of hearing that. Can you say it again, exactly the same way?"

Tim cocks his head to one side, catches Jesse's eye and grin, and obliges her for his sake. "Yes, ma'am. 'No, ma'am.'"

She laughs, delighted, open. "I love it. Honestly, every woman in the world should live in the US for a while just to hear that."

Jesse rolls his eyes, says, "Good luck, man," and leaves them to it.

"Where are you from?" Tim asks.

"The Netherlands."

He nods. "You like it here?"

"I do. Kentucky is beautiful. Where are you from?"

"Uh, I moved around a bit – my dad was Air Force. We settled in Alabama when I was fourteen."

"I've never been to Alabama. Are they still there, your parents?"

Tim shakes his head. "Mom died five years ago – cancer." He swallows, twists his mouth, thinks about her again, that's twice in five minutes and more than he's given her this past year. She deserves better.

"Your dad?"

"They divorced when he was transferred to Texas from Maxwell. He died in a car accident a few years later."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

She pulls her head back, surprised. "Bastard?"

"Complete."

"Abusive?"

"Are you taking Alex's sessions for him today?"

"I can't turn it off. I spend my whole day talking frankly to people about their family issues and other issues. I do it to my friends too."

"Got any friends left?"

She smiles, amused. "Of course, I should warn you, everything you say to me is going directly into Alex's ear as soon as we can find him." She whispers, "I'm wearing a wire. This is all being recorded." She leans around him then and peers down the hallway. "Should we start worrying about him?"

Tim grins, unsure what to make of her except that he likes her manner. He decides to experiment a little, see what makes it back to him. He's mostly bored all day and here's some fun to be had.

"I think Alex is a big boy. And yeah, my dad was abusive. His idea of discipline was more like Roman Army than US military – whipping, holding back rations, beatings."

"Decimation?"

"Not possible. I was an only child. Who would he have left to beat on?"

She grins despite the topic of conversation. "You know your history."

"It's an interesting subject, military history."

"It is." She's silent a moment. "Is that why you joined the military? Do you admire your dad in some way? Wish to live up to expectations?"

Alex must be talking to her, he thinks, files it away. How else would she know about his military past? "No. I did it 'cause I needed a job, and I _enlisted _and went Army. I was a grunt, a nothing Private when I finished Basic. He was an officer. I did it to piss him off, not make him proud."

"Was he pissed off?"

"He died before I finished. Never did get to enjoy it." Tim raises his eyebrows. "Not much of a victory."

"A bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face."

Tim frowns.

"What wasn't much of a victory?" Alex appears in the doorway.

"I'll never tell," says Bridget and winks at Tim. "What the hell happened to you, Dr. Sullivan? You're late."

She uses Tim's knee to help her stand up, pats Alex's cheek and waltzes out.

"A bit eccentric," says Tim.

"And that's just a surface inspection. Uh...sorry, I'm late. I, uh..."

Tim interrupts the excuse. "Don't worry about it. I was plenty entertained. And anyway, what else do I have to do?"

* * *

Andy covers his window and bathroom mirror in toothpaste so no one will be able to see him. The nurses take his toothpaste away, so instead he covers everything in shit.

Alex is looking through a file when he steps into the room, slips and falls flat on his back. His vision fades out for a second and then Andy's peering down at him, grinning like a buffoon or a shark. Alex can't tell which so he gets up in a hurry, swaying, blinking away the stars. His hand hovers over the panic button on his belt but Andy's backing off, moving back into the room and curling up on his mattress.

Alex rubs his sore tailbone and looks around, hoping fiercely that he didn't slip in a pile of crap. He searches the room, finds a gathering of plastic cups under the sink and behind the toilet, each cup holding a bar of soap dissolving in water, no doubt stolen from the custodial staff. It's soapy goo that's covering the whole floor. It's treacherous, but sort of funny too.

"Andy…what've you been up to?"

"Keeps the dogs out." He says it loudly, like he's stating the obvious to an idiot.

"The locks on the doors keep the dogs out, Andy. You don't need to do this." Alex collects up the cups, walking carefully, and goes to find someone with a mop and bucket.

It's lunchtime when he's finished sorting out Andy, so Alex runs home to change his pants. He gets stuck in his apartment for a while fretting over the mess and the laundry that's piled up and leaves himself no time to eat. He spends the afternoon in an increasing and agitating state of hunger.

Sophia is back to not moving or talking at all. She stares right through him and it makes him feel empty – like a part of the room. He thinks it might drive him crazy given enough time. He brings her soup though it's pointless and talks to her though she never says anything back.

He bumps into Martha on his way to check in on Andy. She's carrying an apple and a cup of coffee and she has a way of smiling that stops you in your tracks, warms you right up.

"You look pale," she tells him, matter-of-fact.

"I'm just hungry, I guess. I, uh…missed lunch."

She gives him a stern look, tut-tuts, motherly, then says, "How's Tim doing – Tim Gutterson, our young veteran?"

Alex thinks about it, scratches his head and frowns. "He's doing okay. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. There's something about that kid. He just got to me. Reminds me of someone."

"Yeah? Who? He's…" He stops as Martha's expression changes suddenly, catching something going on behind Alex's back.

She plants her hands on her hips, still holding a coffee and an apple, a rare skill, calls loudly, "Jackson Malloy, you put your clothes back on!"

Alex turns around, coughs into his elbow to cover up the laugh that escapes. Jackson is strolling down the corridor in the nude, a massive hard-on swinging back and forth, head held up high. He gestures wildly at Martha.

"And why would I do that?"

"Because I said so! Now, go on, put your pants on."

"You ain't the boss of me_, Martha! _You ain't the boss of this here hallway. I can do as I damn well please."

She looks back at Alex who's fighting to keep a straight face, hands him her apple and gives him a pat on the arm. "Here, you look hungrier than I feel at the moment."

"Um, thanks." He nods toward Jackson who's continuing his leisurely stroll down the corridor. "You got this?"

"Yes, I've got this. Now, go on. Go eat something."

He takes the stairs down to the vending machines, pockets a Snickers bar and goes back up to the open ward. Tim's door is the only one that isn't closed. He's sitting on the bed reading. Alex knocks and invites himself in.

"Hey."

"Doc. You look different without your office."

The sarcasm hides his nervousness at the intrusion – Alex can see it in the rapid rise and fall of Tim's chest. He turns to the window to give Tim a chance to compose himself.

"You've got a good view. I can see my car from here. Mind if I sit?"

Tim shrugs, says, "A mid-blue 2010 Ford Taurus is not a view," and goes back to his book.

Alex feels a little threatened that Tim knows what car he drives until he remembers that Tim is in law enforcement in the real world and would notice something like that, a reflex. It gives him pause, though. He takes a seat eventually, winces at the stab of pain that shoots up his back when his butt touches and thinks 'coccyx' is an irritating little word for an irritating part of the body. He spells it out in his head; it takes him back to anatomy class in college when everything was still a promise.

He gets a raised eyebrow from Tim when he toes his boots off, ignores it, balances the apple on his knee and starts to unwrap his candy bar. He grins, absurdly pleased, when he sees what Tim's reading.

"Tao Te Ching, huh?"

"It's kinda preachy."

"Yeah, I suppose it is." He looks up to the ceiling, looking for words. "Uh…throw away holiness and wisdom and people will be a hundred times happier, right?"

Tim shakes his head, disagreeing. He closes the book and says, "Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing." He makes a face. "'Course I'd be out of a job."

"See, it's sticking. I knew Jesse had terrible taste in literature." Alex chews for a while, feeling a bit less like he's looking up at the world from the bottom of a well. "Hey, I saw this thing last night. It was a reality TV show. I don't remember what it was called – something to do with law enforcement, I guess. Anyway, the guys were all US Marshals like you and they all kept stashes of candy and nuts and stuff in their cars. Do you really do that – spend a lot of time in a car?"

"Is this some kind of new therapy technique you're trying out?"

"No. This is my lunch break."

"Your lunch break? What time is it?"

"Just after four."

"Uh-huh. I've had quite a few lunches like that on the job. Maybe you should adopt some Marshal habits, stuff your pockets with candy and nuts and stuff."

"So you do stash crap in your car?"

Tim replies, serious, "Uh-uh, not _crap._ I pack cheese strings and apples and whiskey. But I'll eat just about anything, especially if it's lunch at four."

"Whiskey?"

Tim shrugs. "Or beer. Depends on the day, the temperature outside."

Alex pauses, gapes.

"Jesus, Alex, I'm kidding. After-hours only with the booze. You ever try making a 600-yard shot drunk?" Tim smirks. "I'm serious about the cheese strings though."

"Cheese strings. Healthier than Snickers, I guess."

"Yeah, just a bit."

"Um, I should probably get back to work."

"Probably."

Alex gets up and tosses the wrapper from the candy bar in the garbage bin on his way out the door.

Tim clears his throat, gives Alex a pointed look.

"What?"

"Dude, your shoes… Laces, remember?"

Alex chuckles and goes back to collect his boots, doesn't bother to put them on.

"Fucking hippie."

"Stay at the center of the circle, Tim."

Tim flips him the finger.

* * *

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	11. Chapter 11

**An Insane World – Chapter Eleven**

There's a routine now and Tim's resigned to it. He's done being angry about everything that's happened. It's too much work and the drugs don't encourage any kind of will. Now he just wishes everyone would go away and leave him alone. He curls up on the bed in his room and tries to read, ends up in the fetal position staring at something past the walls. He misses his bed, his couch, his desk even, all the places where he feels safe and comfortable, the places he's worn a spot in for himself. He wants familiar smells. He wants the lights dim and the noises muffled and no intrusions. He wants to be warm. He wants a drink or two or three. He wants his gun, any one of them would do, just for the feel of it in his hands. Nothing is familiar here; everything jars. Without carpets the sounds snap sharply off the hard surfaces and the hall lights are always on and countless times each day someone pokes their head in and pokes him with questions and he reaches for a sidearm that isn't there. He takes a fistful of his hoodie in one hand, brings it up and pushes it against his face and breathes in the scent of it. It's him; it's familiar and not.

He closes his eyes and hopes to drift off but the noise picks up out in the hallway, a wailing and crashing. Tim focuses his eyes again on the room and looks at his door. He's left it propped open as usual. The wailing is louder; somebody's upset. Tim sits up and drops his feet to the floor and stands up, decides to shut his door today. The noise is right outside and he feels like screaming himself. He slides the trash bin clear and let's the door go with a light push but it stops and comes back at him fast and one of the other patients, the one making all the noise, stumbles into his room.

"Oh God," he wails. "Oh God." He's bleeding and crying and he careens into Tim and falls to his knees. "Oh God."

Tim moves on instinct, grabs him and hoists him on his bed, his eyes assessing the damage. The blood is gushing from rough cuts on the man's wrists and Tim reacts, years of battlefield triage training. He pulls his pillow case off and rips it into two pieces and covers the wounds then clamps his fingers down hard on each wrist and screams for help.

"Corpsman!" They're already running, he can hear them but yells again anyway. "Corpsman!"

He reports calmly to the first person through the door in hospital clothing. "We got a bleeder. He's slit his wrists, bad."

There's a crowd of movement now and hands appear, cleaner hands than his, gloved hands, to take over the pressure on the makeshift bandages, and more hands pull him out of the way and he backs into the opposite corner of the room and squats down on the floor. The wailing continues and finally a gurney is wheeled in and the man is transferred onto it and the crowd leaves. Tim stays where he is, breathing hard, staring at what's left, a bloody floor and bloody sheets and his pillow, splattered, trampled. He gropes around on the floor beside him for his rifle. When he can't find it, he brings his arm up to his face again but there's blood on his sleeve, on his hoodie. His vision hazes and the room has been sucked dry of oxygen. He starts to panic.

* * *

Alex twists his fingers around his shirt sleeve to keep from biting a nail. He's trying his best to look assertive and calm like he can do this, like he's confident this is the right thing to do – stand here and watch this and be okay. He's not okay.

Sophia was sobbing when they brought her in, struggling, then she screamed, wordless and frantic and Alex wanted to stop the process. He can feel the sting of tears under his eyelids, the sympathy. She's mostly still now, strapped to the bed and sedated to keep her from hurting herself more. It's only he and one nurse left in the room and he's torn between wanting to give Sophia privacy, feeling like an intruder, and needing to be here for her, needing to witness this because this is all on him. It was never her choice.

Sophia's sitting upright. Her back is rigid, her sharp collarbone cruelly visible through the thin gown she's wearing. She's trembling, drug-hazed eyes darting around the room, pulling weakly and hopelessly at the restraints around her wrists. She's scared.

It's to keep her alive, he reminds himself over and over, give it a chance to get better. It's the right thing to do. _It's the only thing left to do._ But Sophia's mute terror seeps through and takes hold in his thoughts, fills the room and his head and crushes his emotions hard against his rational thinking. He can see the revulsion jolting through her as the nurse starts to force the tube into her nose. It's slick with lubricating jelly and some of it mingles with her tears and cold sweat and drips down her cheek and into her hair. She gags and swallows convulsively and the nurse tries to make her sip water from a straw to make it easier, but she won't drink and it spills down her chin too.

The nurse is talking to her constantly, meaningless and soft words, blue latex fingers stroking the bare part of her arm. Alex wants to tell her to stop. It's out of kindness, he knows, an impulse to comfort, but it's another touch Sophia hasn't asked for, another intrusion in her life, not the life she's chosen.

She doesn't want this. And Alex realizes then, he doesn't want this either. Today he thinks he should allow her a death; tomorrow he'll think she can't possibly know better.

He jumps when the alarm goes off. It's the open ward.

"It's just the open ward," he whispers needlessly to the nurse. "They can handle it. I can stay here if you need me to."

"No, no," she says back softly. "You can go. Sophia and I are fine."

_No, she's not,_ he thinks but backs out the door. Sophia doesn't look at him and he's out in the hall and feeling shamefully relieved to be free of the room.

He leaves the ward and stops to look out a window, to let his eyes and his mind get some distance and to collect himself. An orderly rushes past and Alex asks him what's going on.

"Suicide attempt," he says. "It's being dealt with. Pretty sure it's not one of yours."

Alex nods, then takes a couple of quick deep breaths and heads downstairs in case they need him.

"Jesus," he blurts out when he sees the blood trail on the floor in the hallway. He follows it with his eyes into Tim's room. He can hear voices inside, something slamming. A nurse hurries into the room and Alex finally moves, follows her in.

But the orderly said it _wasn't_ one of his.

He expects the worst and the room confirms it. It's like someone was butchered in here. He's surprised to witness Tim wrestling with two of the staff. That much blood loss, he should be on the floor. Alex watches, confused, as Tim swipes the legs out from under the larger of the two men trying to hold him. The nurse standing nearby with a needle poised backs up to get clear, slips in the blood and careens into Alex.

"What's going on?" Alex barks. "Tim… Tim! Stop! You're hurt. Let us help you."

"He's not hurt," the nurse explains breathlessly when she's got her balance. "He's just… Dr. Platt ordered a sedative."

The orderly still standing is trying to get Tim's arm behind his back to restrain him and Tim moves instinctively with the pressure and spins away and free and behind a chair, pushes it between him and the others and breaks for the bathroom. Before he can get the door closed Alex, closest, scrambles over and blocks it, a curse exploding from him when it slams on his arm. He pushes his way through and dodges a fist, pure luck that it hits the wall rather than his face.

Tim backs away, ends up in the shower, eyes wide and darting, chest heaving with the strain of fear, every part of him is screaming one thing – _escape._

Alex closes the door halfway. "Tim…" In close quarters, he gets a good look at his patient, comprehends now that this is an anxiety attack, a panic attack. "Tim, it's me – Alex." He holds both hands up, open, non-aggression, takes a small step toward the shower. "Hey, Tim…what's going on? Can you tell me where you are?"

Tim tries to get past and out the door but he's blocked by the two orderlies and backs up again into Alex. Alex moves out of his way.

"Tim…" Alex continues to speak calmly. "Tim, get behind me. You're safe here."

The familiar voice seems to get through the confusion and the offer of help is what he wants to hear and Tim slips past Alex again farther back into the bathroom, into the shower and crouches down on the floor.

"I lost my rifle," he hisses, gasping for breath.

"That's okay, Tim. It's okay. I've got mine. I'll cover you."

Through the half-open door, Alex sees Dr. Platt appear behind the orderlies.

"How are we doing?" he asks, brusque and business. The nurse holds up the unused sedative, shrugs helplessly. "Come on, people. Get this done. He could hurt himself," he says, and pushes the door open.

"No…" Tim starts to stand when he sees the men in the doorway. He clutches his hands into tight fists, one bleeding where it hit the wall. "No."

The orderlies try to move in and even Alex gets claustrophobic in the tight space. He puts out both arms and stops them. "No," he says mimicking Tim in sympathy. He pushes them back. "No, just let me deal with this."

"Dr. Sullivan, I didn't realize you were in there." Dr. Platt means well, but he talks down to Alex from his experienced perch. "Let the boys in to do their job. Your patient's safety, and ours, is the primary concern here."

"No," Alex repeats himself. He can't watch them pin Tim down. He can't do this again today. He's had enough of it. He's had enough. "I'll handle it."

"Alex, don't make me go over your head on this."

"Fuck off!" Alex yells it, wrestles his anger down, says more evenly, "I'll deal with this. It's fine. He's my patient." Before anyone can react he closes the door completely and drops his forehead onto it, then turns around to assess the damage.

Tim is still standing, eyes wild.

"They're gone," Alex says, turns on the water at the sink and takes a drink from the tap, wipes his mouth. He moves closer to Tim and puts both hands out, settling. "Let's sit down, okay?"

Tim doesn't move.

"Hey, it's safe now. You're safe." He watches the labored breathing, the hitching with every intake of air. "Tim, slow down. Take a deep breath. Like me." He takes an exaggerated long gulp in and lets it out slowly, loudly, hand motions to demonstrate. "Tim, look at me. Do this." He repeats himself and feels stupid doing it. Tim's looking at him now though, his eyes riveted on Alex's.

Alex turns on the tap again and fills the cup that's by the sink, soaks a wash cloth. He sets them on the floor by the shower then sets a hand gently on Tim's shoulder. Tim twitches and tries to pull away but there's no place to go, he's in a corner, and Alex runs his hand soothing down Tim's arm then applies a little pressure when he gets to his elbow, pulling him back down onto the floor. Tim allows it, ends up cross-legged in the shower. There's a noise from his room, beyond the door, and he moves to get up again but Alex puts his other hand out, pressure lightly on Tim's shoulder keeping him down.

"It's just the, uh…the rest of the squad," Alex scrambles for all the war movie phrases he can remember. "They're, uh…setting up a perimeter, uh… Let me dress that wound for you." He picks up the washcloth and wipes at the scrapes and the blood on Tim's hands, realizes it's mostly dried and wonders again what happened. "Hey, uh… What's your name?"

"Tim."

"Yes. Good, I'm in the right room. And my name?"

Tim flicks his eyes to Alex then back to the door. "Alex."

"Bingo. Where are you, Tim? Can you describe the room?"

Tim looks around, squeezes his eyes shut. "Um, it's white."

"Yes, it's white. Boring white would be a good description or institutional white. Anything else?"

"It's tile."

"What shape?" He asks the questions without really thinking about them, trying to kick-start some rational thinking in Tim's brain.

"Um, square. It's square. Bathroom."

"Yep. What are you wearing?"

Tim looks down at his clothes, his breathing slowing finally, still hitched. He brings up a hand and wipes at the blood on his hoodie. "That's blood."

Alex is afraid he's made a mistake drawing Tim's attention to his blood-drenched clothes.

"Shit." Tim wipes at it frantically.

Alex puts his hand back on Tim's shoulder. "It's okay. We'll get it cleaned. You're okay."

Tim pulls at the sweater, pulls it off and drops it. "Shit. That's not mine. It's not mine. I didn't do anything."

"No, you didn't do anything. Do you have another sweater to put on?"

"I don't…I don't think so. I don't know."

"I'll look for you. It's okay. Are you cold?"

"No," says Tim, but he's shaking.

"Would you like me to see if I can get that cleaned?"

"I like that sweater."

"Yeah, I know. You wear it a lot. What color is it?"

"Gray."

"Yes, it's gray. And you're safe here."

"Is he okay?"

"Who?"

"That guy. The guy who… The blood."

"I don't know," Alex answers truthfully.

Tim looks around the room again. "Shit. I kinda freaked out."

"It's okay, uh…that was freak-out worthy. Most people would've _passed_ out at the sight of all that blood."

Tim stares at Alex's face, his breathing still labored. He draws his knees up and wraps his arms tightly around them and puts his head down. Alex watches the rhythm of the breathing and waits. Eventually Tim lifts his head again.

"I don't want any more meds, okay? Please? No more meds. I can't think. I don't react right. I'm vulnerable. Do you understand?"

Alex nods – he understands. It's who Tim is, the soldier, the Marshal, alert. You can't be alert sedated. "Alright," he says calmly, squeezes Tim's shoulder and pats it. "Alright. We'll get you off the sedatives. And I, uh, won't let them give you a dose now. I promise, okay? But you've got to trust me. You're safe here."

Tim is looking at him intently. "You promised. You remember."

"Yes, I did. Uh, heh…don't make me regret it though."

"Jesus, I just want to get out of here."

The door opens and Alex leaves his hand on Tim's shoulder, a weight. He feels Tim jump, feels the tension underneath. "It's alright. I told you. You're safe here."

It's Bridget. She's the senior psychiatrist on staff today, the one Dr. Platt has gone complaining to. She's peering around the door. She looks them over then winks at Alex and smiles for Tim and disappears. Muffled voices slip in under the door and then disappear too. Under his hand, Alex feels Tim take a shuddering but long breath and he watches him reach a shaky hand out for the cup and drink some water.

Alex finds it surprisingly calming sitting on the floor in the bathroom. He leans his head against the shower stall and sighs. He's content to wait it out, lets the time drip past.

Tim looks exhausted. He covers his face with both hands. "Fuck. What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing. You're tired of holding it all in, Tim. That's all."

"Oh. That's all." Tim huffs behind his fingers and drops his head back onto his knees.

* * *

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	12. Chapter 12

**An Insane World – Chapter Twelve**

It's ten o'clock again and Tim shuts the door to Alex's office and stands there turning the voice recorder over and over nervously in his hands. He looks tired, pale, more skittish than he has in a while. Yesterday was a reality check for them both and Alex wonders how far back it's set them. He gives Tim a quick smile that isn't returned, decides the air needs a little loosening so spews some nonsense, something embarrassing about himself, an equalizer.

"I, uh…I overslept this morning. I was really late and in a hurry and there's this old beer bottle that I've been using for cigarette butts – I used to have a bunch of ashtrays but they kept getting lost... Anyway, uh…I quit smoking about a week before you arrived and I haven't gotten around to throwing out the bottle and it was starting to stink. I figured I'd grab it and toss it on my way out, you know? So I grabbed my stuff, I was in a hurry, and I tripped over a magazine and dropped it. Stupid. It broke, of course, spilled out all over my living room floor, the carpet too. What a mess. You know what really pissed me off, though? I was standing there in this, uh…this disgusting puddle of stale beer and old cigarette butts, and all I could think about…was how badly I wanted a smoke."

Tim stares a moment, lips pressed tight, then says, "I quit drinking about the same time you quit smoking. Difference is I didn't have a choice. Buck up."

He strides purposefully over and pulls his chair from against the wall, sets it directly in front of Alex's desk and sits down, leans forward engaging, finally engaging. "I remember a school, okay? I remember being at an abandoned school." He sets the recording device on the desk, taps it with a finger. "Art was there. Raylan was there." He looks earnest. "Am I allowed to have visitors? Has anyone come by?"

Alex considers the information, stores the hinted possibility of alcohol abuse away for later, something to tackle in a future session. He thinks about his smoking habit, thinks _choices are nasty little fuckers _and realizes when he hears Tim huff that he's spoken the last bit aloud.

"Sure are," says Tim, slouches back thinking about some of his own choices.

Alex pretends that he meant to speak his mind, shares a grim chuckle with Tim while he regains his focus. "A school? Uh…yes, visitors are absolutely allowed on the open ward. Art Mullen, Chief Deputy. I spoke to him once here in the office and then practically every day on the phone since you were admitted. He's, uh…he's a formidable character."

Tim frowns, his hands going quickly, roughly through his hair. He looks suddenly upset.

Alex catches the change, makes an assumption and hurries to add, "Tim, everything that happens in here, anything we discuss, is strictly confidential. I wouldn't… I _can't_ tell him or anyone else anything. He was, uh…pissed about it. He yelled at me."

Tim's withdrawing; Alex watches it as he talks, watches as Tim pushes his chair back, draws in tight, arms crossed again, aggressively defensive.

"Did you want me to call him and…?"

"No." Tim cuts off the question, shakes his head for emphasis.

"Is there someone else you'd like to…?"

"No. I'm fine. Forget it."

"Goddammit, Tim!" Alex finally gives his frustration some air. "Jesus, what is it with you? We can sit here and stare at each other and avoid talking about anything that upsets you for an hour a day for as long as you want – I'll be here – but I'd rather you figure this out. I'd rather we get you past all this. I want to see you get the hell out of here. But we can't do that if you clam up every fucking time you don't like what I've got to say!"

Tim is mute, staring at a spot on the floor.

Letting out a quiet growl, Alex takes his glasses off, tosses them carelessly on his desk and slumps back in his chair. He drops his head back too and covers his face, rubs it hard then grinds the heels of his hands into his temples. He sighs heavily, leans forward again on his desk and holds up his head on an elbow. He's caught, torn between wanting to drag a reaction out of Tim and being afraid to push and trigger a further retreat, and he's embarrassed too, about his outburst. Trying to keep any emotion out of his voice, he picks up the session where they left off.

"So, uh…it's an abandoned school and Art's there. Who's Raylan? Another Marshal?"

Alex's attempt to reopen the discussion seems to stall at the edge of his desk and drop. It's like Tim's watching it all the way down, watching it flop to the floor. The clock hand slams to the half hour and a door slams in the hall outside the office.

Tim's head jerks up with the noise. He sits a little straighter, watches the door intently for a moment then loosens slightly, tilts his head and studies Alex's face. His mouth twists and his eyebrows draw down; he's working up to something. It's a thick Alabama accent he puts on when he says, "Shit, Alex, and I thought you were just punching the clock. You really do care."

It's a joke, but there's no humor in the tone. Tim takes a deep breath and stares off into a corner.

Alex is done talking. He can wait it out today. _They're still paying me,_ he thinks.

"Raylan," Tim says finally, slowly, "is a cowboy." He looks again at Alex then starts rubbing a callus on his index finger. "Look, I'm afraid of what people are gonna think when they find out I'm in a psych ward. So Art knows, huh?" He nods an affirmative to his own question, resignation. "You know, if we're gonna start yelling, I'd like some bourbon. I yell better when I'm drunk." He wets his lips. "And I talk easier too."

"As much as I bet we'd both enjoy drunk therapy…I'm all out of bourbon. Actually, I never had any to begin with."

"Oh, now, there's a habit you need to pick up."

Alex gives Tim a flat look. "I'm trying to get rid of bad habits, not pick up new ones."

"What would give you the idea that bourbon is a _bad_ habit?"

"Tim, enough. Give me something to work with here. Who are these people that you worry about…about finding out you're here, apart from Art and the, uh…the cowboy?"

"The cowboy and the chief." Tim seems stuck on the thought, tackles the question wrong. "They don't know, alright? Nobody there does. Do you understand?"

Alex shrugs, shakes his head.

Tim sighs, defeated. "I don't know how Art'll feel about all this. Honestly, that worries me most. I mean it's his ass if I fuck up, right, so I'd think he'd be anxious to get me transferred out maybe. But where would the Marshals Service put me after this? And Raylan, well, as long as it's not affecting his day I don't think he gives a shit about anything." Tim smiles. "Rachel, I think she'd bring me water if I was thirsty. She's that type." He looks back at Alex. "But the guys, they'd get it. They'd cover for me. I've done it for them."

"The guys?"

"My buddies from the Rangers. Shit, they're all dealing with something. I thought..." He shrugs now, looks briefly up at Alex again, gauging. "Too bad about the bourbon. I'll give you some money and you can get me some – sneak it in." He entices with a grin.

Alex meets his eyes, mirrors the grin. "I will not be your dealer, Tim."

"It was worth a try."

"You know, the impression I got from your Chief is that he's anxious to get you back, not transfer you out."

Tim drops the grin. "We'll see."

"Hey," says Alex, reaches down and pulls up a shopping bag. "I almost forgot. Martha heard about what happened yesterday. She took it home last night, got the stains out." He produces Tim's ragged hoodie with a flourish, tosses it over.

Tim catches it, holds it up. "Huh." An honest and tentative smile graces the room. Tim looks embarrassed to be so happy about it – it's just a sweatshirt. He squeezes it tightly with both hands.

* * *

Alex starts his afternoon rounds on the closed ward. Sophia is always first. Something crunches under his shoe when he steps into the room. It's part of a fingernail. There's blood on the wall. She's wedged herself into a corner like a spooked raccoon, the shadows around her eyes enhancing the impression. Her hands are bleeding and she's pulling at her hair, pulling it over her face, a veil, smearing her cheeks red in the process. Martha is kneeling in front of her, a tray with cotton swabs and disinfectant on her lap.

Alex takes it all in, takes a deep breath, then another one. "What happened?"

Christina, who's standing close to the door, clears her throat. Alex turns around to face her. She's pale, mascara smudged. "I just stepped out for a minute. She was asleep…"

"You left her alone!?"

There's a tense moment when he can feel the argument build up steam like a kettle, threatening that shrill shriek when it reaches the boiling point, but it's all cut short when Martha gets in between them and gestures for Christina to leave. She puts a latex gloved hand on Alex's shoulder. "She was scratching the wall. It looks a lot worse than it is but we're going to need to clean those fingers. Maybe you could talk to her while I work?"

She states it like a request but Alex knows better. He nods and sits down on the floor so he's not looming over his patient. "Hey, Sophia, what's going on?"

Her voice is thin, raw, and it's a shock to hear it. "They keep touching me."

Alex takes another steadying breath, rubs a hand across his face, searching for something to say to reassure and coming up empty. She's got bruises around her wrists, souvenirs from the nasogastric intubation. The irrational part of his brain is screaming at him – _it's all your fault._

"Would you let me take a look at your hands?"

She replies sharply, metal on metal, a car wreck. "Tell them to stop touching me!"

Sophia's voice is still scraping the inside of Alex's head hours later. He's sitting on his couch in his apartment trying to tune her out. He wasn't planning on working tonight too, but he needs to replace her with something else so he picks up the recorder that Tim left him that morning hoping there's something interesting enough on it to distract him. He slides off the couch and lies out on the carpet then turns the recorder on and sets it on the coffee table. He finds he listens better with a different perspective on the world, looking at the ceiling and the underside of the table and the couch, everything a little skewed, off normal so he can't phase out so easily. Tim's voice sounds flat – maybe it's the recorder though likely not – but at least the edges are smooth. At least the words don't hurt.

"It's better for thinking with no one in the room looking at me. I guess that's why you have me doing this?

"There's a guy on this ward – God, I can't look at him – he left his kid in the back of his car and went to work. He forgot about him. He forgot about him and the kid died from hyperthermia. He fucking _forgot _about him. I can't stop thinking about it. He keeps cornering people and explaining it. Jesse says it's not uncommon, perfectly caring parents being so tired and just going about their lives and distracted and one day they do the same thing they've always done – so routine that when they miss the stop at the daycare, thinking about a sales call or something, they don't even notice. They just mechanically go and forget. I can't stop thinking about it. It makes me so fucking mad, it's so pointless. I can't imagine…

"I saw some kids dead in Afghanistan. I saw a few. I've seen one or two on the job here.

"I can't stop thinking about it. It's hard to shut that kind of shit off.

"That poor fucking guy. They moved him after what happened. I am so fucking relieved. Maybe now I can stop thinking about it."

The recording clicks off there, picks up later.

"Hey, Alex. So, I remember something, I think, from that day at work. At least, I think it was that day. It came to me last night after everything. Maybe it kick-started something, that whole scene. Whatever. I remember having some breakfast with Rachel. We went to that coffee place around the block and bought stuff to take with us and we ate in the car. We were driving somewhere early, but…I don't think we actually got there. Art called us back. Anyway, I don't remember getting there, wherever it was we were going."

His voice gets a little sharp then.

"I sound like a fucking school kid. _I don't remember. _What happened to your homework?_ I don't remember. _Where's your jacket gone?_ I don't remember. _Why are you in the hospital?_ I don't remember!"_

There's some shuffling, a deep breath in and out. "I was always late for school as a kid. I hated school."

There's another break. Alex stops the recording and makes some notes, messy scribbles lying on his back using a pencil. He starts the recording again.

"Hey Alex, I remembered something else when I woke up this morning. I think it's coming back. I remember a school. And I had my rifle. I think I'm starting to remember it all – unless maybe I was dreaming. The windows were broken on the building and the grass was long. I don't think it was being used anymore. It looked abandoned. Art was there. Maybe it'd be okay if he came by and I could ask him about it. I don't know, maybe I'm just remembering that school where Raylan hid out with Drew Thompson. It was big though, that school, a two-story. This one's smaller, single story. It's definitely not a high school, the place I'm thinking of.

"I remember it right, I'm sure. It was definitely a school. I'm behind the SUV. I'm pretty sure Art's there. And I have my rifle. I think Raylan's there, too.

"Fuck, I feel like I'm playing a video game and I have no peripheral.

"Was there grass? Or was it just dirt and…? Maybe I'm mixing it up with that place in Logar? My spotter was there. Shit, I think I am mixing it up. Never mind."

* * *

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End file.
